


There is Nothing Without Time

by filenotch



Category: Highlander, Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crossover, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 03:10:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filenotch/pseuds/filenotch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It split open at the blade, opening like the iris of a cat, the edges of the figure blurring into the swirl at the outside, a vortex that Methos fell into with the force of his sword thrust, a ring of laughter in his ears. "I banish </i>you<i>!"</i> Methos finds himself in a world where Immortals never existed, one where all the myths in all the books he's ever read are real. The demon Ahriman has followed him, and Castiel, the living embodiment of all those myths, wants it sent back, and Methos with it.   </p><p>But how do you vanquish an enemy in a dimension where neither of you exists? The answer lies somewhere beneath the weight of knowledge Methos carries with him, somewhere in the memories of every Immortal that ever lived, but it will take Castiel to find the one that holds the key: the memories of Duncan MacLeod. Castiel will force Methos to face down that death--and in return, Methos will show Castiel that there is something very different between knowing and understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is Nothing Without Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the spncross_bigbang 2012. This is Castiel in the beginning, and Methos plants at least one of the seeds for Team Free Will. It would not be what it is without Tesserae and her amazing beta.

_The demon Ahriman, in the guise of a dead enemy, says, "I'm a part of you now."  
Duncan MacLeod, with a small curve to his lips says, "You always were." _

He had not hunted like this in many seasons, although the seasons now were a mere inconvenience of appropriate clothing and no longer the rhythms of life. And his hunt had not been over ground, tracking the signs of horses and the rumors of war, but electronic, tracking money and names until all the dead ends had a common thread, walking the streets of New York.

With typical ostentation, the man had converted three floors of an old factory for his own use—business, dojo, residence. Furniture vans sometimes came and went, and sometimes the man would stop and look around as if worried or troubled. Some days the hunter, from his perch and watching, felt something in his blood that made him want to fly down the stairs, run the city blocks like an open plain of battle, and attack without heed. The target must have felt it, too, somehow, because one night, through a lighted window, he began to train with the motions of the formal kata, and the exercises of the kill. 

The hunter couldn’t let his target regain what he once had been, re-create the skills of the champion. He pulled on his coat, knee-length and non-descript from the outside, but tailored to hide the weight of the sword and the knives in their sheaths in the lining. Every step down the stairs felt like it took him deeper into the darkness of need. He had been on enough hunts, been in enough battles, that he knew the difference between adrenaline—the nervous system's cue to feed, flee, fight, or fuck—and this pull. It took all his centuries of learned control to keep his gate steady, to open the door to the street rather than burst through. He walked steadily down the block to the door he had been watching for two weeks, pulled his gun and shot the lock twice with all the casual motion as if pulling out a key and opening it the normal way, and slid inside. 

The first floor was a maze of antiques, set up as much as a warehouse as a display room. He probably had only a few minutes with the alarms before the police would come. For speed he took stairs two at a time, sword in hand, a feral grimace twisting his lips. Long ago he would have screamed his battle cry and killed without heed, but this time he moved as silently as he could, easing open the door and stealing across the open loft floor.

Over the bed hung a sword, a two-handed Ivanhoe blade. The figure on the bed struggled to sit up. The voice was ragged with sleep but shot through with relief. "I knew you were alive."

 _Stupid to trust._ He lifted the katana and brought it to rest at the man's neck. He felt warmth, the skating drive crackling under his skin, and the force of his self-control made his hands shake.

The man swallowed, flesh moving against the sword enough to draw a faint line of blood. "Not funny." 

"Not joking." He shifted the blade. It no longer rested across the man's neck, but instead the point was off a bit to the side of his Adam's apple, dimpling the flesh. His own voice cracked from disuse, and he wanted to laugh at the cliché. "There can be only one." 

"This should be a fight, not an execution."

"I can't risk losing," Methos said, and MacLeod closed his eyes and appeared resigned. The dark vibration of the Gathering calling _kill_ took over, and Methos leaned his weight in, forcing the sword through the throat, cutting both arteries. Everything was still for a moment, and then he pulled the katana out, his moves as sure and precise as a kata. The body fell back, blood gushing from both sides, a half-second's illusion of red, liquid wings.

He did not let himself think. He dropped the katana and took the Ivanhoe from the wall. It was dulled from disuse, but he had strength enough to serve, and he wanted his own blade for this. He raised the sword, two-handed, over his head and swung down, and the Ivanhoe hewed flesh and feather pillows.

It was not the death that released an Immortal's Quickening, but the beheading. Methos prepared himself for the storm of lightning that must follow. He was the champion, to his own self true, even to killing the last of his kind by stealth instead of open Challenge. A streak of mist rose, and like a bullet the leading edge circled under Methos's feet and around the bed in an uneven flight that laid down the crossings of a Celtic knot. 

There was no lightening. Wind from across a distant plain curled around the edges of the mist, gaining speed as the mist sank down and became water, the knotwork shone like quicksilver, flowing around the bed, dissolving the circle before pooling around his bare feet. He looked down to see a single drop of blood fall from the tip of the Ivanhoe into the silver liquid, the red lengthening and streaming as it twisted up his legs and encased his whole body. He stood rooted to the spot, all the power of all the Immortals who had ever been flowing over his head. He breathed it into his nose and mouth, feeling it immerse him in warmth and anger and pain and forgiveness and grief. He closed his eyes, controlling sudden tears.

And he knew everything they had ever known. All of the lives were his. Always before, the Quickening had been lightning and pain, raw power, but this was the mysterious Prize seeping into him. Strength and power, yes, but knowledge and wisdom, and even the evil and the foolishness, all seamlessly _there_ —lives from every age and every continent since Immortals began. He felt huge, like the ziggurat in Babel, Cheop's pyramid, Notre Dame de Paris, the Empire State Building. There was room inside him.

He looked at the body on the bed, reached to see if the power he felt could make it whole. He had _been_ the stuff of mortal's nightmares, yet he almost believed he could do this. He stepped to the bed and reached with his left hand, fingers splayed over both the stump and the severed neck, rolling it back together, asking the still-warm body to heal.

The eyes opened, and looked straight at him, accusing, but the voice he heard did not come from the severed throat. It echoed in the air, brisk and practical despite its ancient resonance. "He's lost too much blood, even if it was possible, and maybe it is, but you aren't the one who can do it. Resurrection is not the province of such as you."

Suddenly the dead eyes were closed as if they'd never opened. Methos jerked his hand away, and the head rolled back again, the first fire of hope spreading from his chest into a new fear. Standing across the bed wearing leggings from another age, bare-chested, was the man he knew as Kronos. Methos raised his sword, the movement automatic, sparing a thought for the slip of his left hand on the hilt, wet with blood. "You're dead."

"So is he. And congratulations. You hid from the Gathering, coward. You let Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod kill every other Immortal, and in the dead of night you come like a thief to become the last and steal the Prize. He knew you were alive, and he lived in hope of seeing you again." The demon's scarred, borrowed face smiled. "Do you know what he was about to say to you? Before you took his power to speak?"

Methos did not want to know. "You're not Kronos." And in a blink the figure was at his side, hand possessive on the curve of Methos's flank. He felt his muscles tense beneath the too-warm touch. There was only one thing this could be, the only true supernatural thing that Methos had ever seen. "You are Ahriman." 

"I can be Kronos. War to your Death. Feel that power within you. Feel what you could do with the knowledge. Together we could take this world."

"You tried that once." Methos swallowed. "Both Kronos and Ahriman."

"Never with a Champion. It's singing in you, isn't it?"

And it was, like the flash of a Quickening channeling liquid through his veins. Part of him wanted to be tempted, but he was too many people. "You have no flesh. You cannot kill me."

"But I can bring chaos to your senses," laughed the voice in his ear, and the body sat up, whole and smiling and reaching for him. Methos could hear the voice, rumbling and warm, see the lips move as it said, "I've missed you, love. Come to bed." 

Methos took a half-step forward, wanting nothing more. 

The voice of Kronos buzzed in his ear, "You'll never know what is real." Duncan lay dead again, his head, offset from his neck by a few inches and turned slightly to the side as if he were sleeping.. The crimson stain of his life's blood spread out to either side across the white linen, dotted in a few places with down from the opened pillow. Methos let no expression on his face, and tried not to see wings.

Methos had been a priest more than once and to more than one kind of god. He had called down power and believed in it but it had been nothing real, an illusion from the drugs, the fasting, the power of suggestion. What he felt under his skin at that moment—this was different. The false Kronos stood close, and Methos imagined he could feel breath. Duncan had defeated this thing, this _demon_ , and if Duncan's body was empty on the bed, it was because Duncan was in him now. 

He turned with the Ivanhoe, stepping to give himself room to swing. He knew that Ahriman would be gone before the sword could land, and he was, standing in Duncan's shape, leaning in the door of the bathroom. Methos returned to guard, the point of the sword aimed at the shape of a smirking Duncan MacLeod, at the opening in a robe that was barely cinched. Methos couldn't help but look, responding to the shape with a rising flush of old desire, frozen to the spot.

The thing slid its hand down its chest, baring Duncan's familiar planes and pushing open the loose tie of the robe. "You can have this again," Ahriman said in Duncan's voice, and he took his cock in his hand, already hard, and stroked once, looking at Methos with smug invitation. But Duncan would never have done such a thing. He was too earnest for games or displays, and the sheer falseness broke the spell.

Methos reached through the blood on the hilt to gather the power in his hands. He knew the words from the charms they made two thousand years ago, and older than that. They had no truth then, and they meant everything now. "I banish you," he said in the liquid sounds of the Avesta, older than Sanskrit. The demon smirked, and then looked startled. He didn't disappear, and Methos took a step toward him, the blade unwavering. "I banish you," he intoned, this time in the formal Latin of the Imperial court.

Ahriman backed up into the bathroom, trapped against the sink as Methos came toward him. "I banish you," in English. With that the blade touched the bare, false chest and Methos sent the power through it along with his thrust, willing the demon to die.

Mistake. There was no resistance of cleaving flesh. The form of Duncan split open at the blade, opening like the iris of a cat, the edges of the figure blurring into the swirl at the outside, a vortex that Methos fell into with the force of his sword thrust, a ring of laughter in his ears. "I banish _you_!" 

*****

Consciousness was not a slow thing, but fast, like a comet suddenly come to rest in a body sprawled on a dirty concrete floor. The only sound was the wind across the metal roof. Methos pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and sat back on his heels before looking around. There was still something singing under his skin. He was in a small warehouse, first light coming in through the open door, and the rose glow showed that every inch of the walls were covered with symbols. Some of them were older even than he was. "Well," he said aloud. "I suppose this is what the inside of a demon looks like," but the words fell hollow on his ears. There was no one to annoy with his banter.

He reached for Duncan inside him, but he was dead, those memories like a book to be read, not a voice to answer. And there the grief rose, tearing out of his throat in wordless longing and supplication, the energy he had contained for so long breaking out in a single cry, ringing against the rafters and echoing off the painted sigils until his voice broke, calling for help and forgiveness and expecting none.

With the last ringing sound, he took a deep breath and pulled himself, all his new self, back together. Ahriman did not seem to be here, and Methos didn't know where _here_ was. His sword lay nearby, and he grabbed at the hilt, moving stiffly as if he'd been dead. Perhaps he had. He stood uneasily, checking the rest of his armaments. The barn door was open, the broken remains of a stout bar on either side, and he wondered what could have forced a four-by-four pressure-treated beam so neatly down the middle. He walked out into the surrounding field, a disused industrial space with houses in the distance and junk in the yard, an old license plate telling him that this was Illinois. America still, but a long way from New York. Someone in him knew this land, but he was not ready to face it. In the rising light Methos turned back to inspect the inside of the warehouse more closely. 

The sigils ran across all the walls and the ceiling. Within him he held memories that could recognize every one and name its origin. Whatever painted these on the walls wanted to keep something in, or something out. Something had forced the doors outward, but there were no marks on the inside. How and why had Ahriman brought him here? Had Ahriman broken the door?

Methos looked at the floor, and realized he had arrived in the center of a circle. His new memories named the symbols, not Zoroastrian he’d half-expected but Goetics and Enochian—the languages, according to myth, of both demons and angels. If this place were meant to keep something out, it hadn't worked, and if there were more than the one demon, Ahriman, Methos didn't know what to do.

"Who the hell are you?"

Methos turned to find a bearded man pointing a shotgun at him. The name came unbidden to his lips. "Bobby Singer." Some Immortal had known this man, had a beer with him, bought parts for his truck and tractors while hiding out as a farmer. 

"How do you know my name? What are you? How the hell did you get in here?"

"I don't know," Methos said, trying to pull a persona around himself. Adam Pierson would not do. The monk he had been for the last ten years in Nepal would not do. He had too many inside him to know who to be, or how. The name of the farmer, a very young Immortal, came to him with the memory of leaving his farm to go to Australia when the call of the Gathering became too strong. "I mean, Jim Wilson. I knew him."

"Jim Wilson disappeared about nine, ten years ago, and I sure as hell know he didn't have pictures of me in his wallet." 

"Where am I?"

"At the other end of a shotgun full of rock salt. I look out and see red light streaming from every crack in this old barn, and here you are. What the hell was that?"

"What is all this?" He gestured at the sigils on the inside of the walls. Wilson remembered Singer as a regular guy, no hint of anything like this.

"Why the hell are you carrying a sword?"

Methos looked down at the Ivanhoe, raising it slightly, and noting that Singer cocked the shotgun in response. He tried to keep his answer light. "That's a funny story. Got a few millennia?"

"Angel, demon, what the hell are you?"

Methos wasn't sure if the man was serious. He fell back on his standard answer. "I'm just a guy."

"Horseshit!" Singer's fingers tightened on the gun.

"Bobby, please put that thing down."

"Don't talk to me like you know me," Singer said, and he pulled the trigger.

The pellets of salt stung at first, and then burned. Methos bent over in pain. "Bloody hell!" He heard Bobby's boots stride toward him, and then his head was knocked back by the stock of the rifle. He heard his jaws snap and a tooth broke, but instinctively he brought the sword to bear as fell backward, feeling it hit the metal of the shotgun barrel. He felt himself healing, and opened his eyes, looking into the barrel of the gun. "Ow."

"What the hell are you?!"

Then a presence hit Methos, like buzz of another Immortal, only louder. He heard footsteps and from his vantage Methos saw loafers walking across the floor. 

Singer turned to look, the gun still pointed at Methos but wavering, as if he weren't sure where to aim. "You again?"

Methos saw a young man in a trench coat place two fingers gently on Singer's forehead. "Yes," he said. Singer crumpled, his fall was slow and gentle. The man in the trench coat turned and held out his hand. Methos looked up at him, and the face was smooth, expressionless, yet more intense than almost anyone he had ever seen. He had seen something like it in the idols of gods, but here the gaze was real, and pierced through him. "You called, and I came, and I do not know what you are."

"The feeling is mutual." Methos ignored the offered hand and levered himself up, his grip on the sword tightening in case this was the prelude to a Challenge. But as soon as he was on his feet the stranger reached out to touch the tears in his shirt where the rock salt had pierced, the blue eyes moving up to his jaw, the hand following, and at his touch, skin on skin, Methos saw light, heard a voice that could sunder mountains, and felt _size_. It was everything he felt in the Quickening, and more, the power in his veins expanding until he though that he would burst. And then it was over. He found himself with his head pulled back, jaw open in a silent scream, and he took a breath and stepped back, raising his sword.

And the man said, "You can see me."

"You're standing right there. What just happened?"

"You saw my true visage, not my vessel."

"What are you talking about?" 

"You are not blinded." There was a streak of something, surprise or wonder, in the man's voice.

Methos stepped back again, sword at guard. He nodded at Bobby Singer. "What did you do to him? What did you just do to me?"

"I was going to heal you, but you did not need it." The blue eyes never left his face, and he stepped to walk in a circle around Methos. Methos turned to keep the sword pointed at the center of the man's loosened tie, energy still crackling under his skin. The man's brows pulled very slightly together, as if he were not used to making any expression at all. "You are not a demon. You have souls within you, but they are not souls. I do not understand." The man stopped circling, and tilted his head slightly, gazing at Methos as if he could see anything he wanted, as if he were trying to see something hidden. Then he seemed to come to a decision.

"You called for help, and your life has changed. You were born on a Thursday—"

"I was born before there was such a thing as Thursday!"

The man said something that Methos could not understand, and given all the memories he now had, he should know every language ever spoken on the Earth. "In Enochian," the man added, as if to clarify. "There were days in Heaven before the Earth ever turned its axis." He blinked once, slowly, as if considering. "Come. This will be easier, I think, with pie."

Methos muttered, "I'd rather have a beer," but the man pushed the blade down from guard and touched Methos on the shoulder, and they were suddenly in the parking lot of a diner. Methos felt no movement, but the shock of transition put his heart in his throat for a moment, and he pulled himself back and brought the sword up again. "What are you?" He tried to put power into his hands, but the feeling was gone.

"I am an Angel of the Lord," the man said, and the voice slid under Methos's awareness, riding the sense of Immortal presence to some place deeper in his brain. He did not believe it for an instant. He did not believe he was somewhere else. This was too much like Ahriman's illusions, and Methos closed his eyes. The voice, shot through with tones that threatened to tear him asunder, said, "I am a soldier of Heaven. My _name_ is Castiel."

"Angel of Thursday," one of Methos's memories supplied, and he could see the sigil in Enochian, knew it as the angelic language. He wanted to laugh at the mundane notion of an Angel of Thursday, and wanted to find somewhere silent where he wouldn't be prompted to know things he could not remember ever learning. He was afraid that the voice would speak again. "This is an illusion."

The voice spiked into his brain as if his ears were trying to channel a flood down into a jet. "Do not offend me. Demons use illusion and lies. I am--" 

Methos interrupted. He had to stop the sound. "Angel. Got it."

"This will be easier with pie." This time the voice was almost normal.

Methos opened his eyes. "What are you talking about?" 

Castiel's brows were furrowed, but his gaze did not waver. "You can see me, hear me. My true face and voice. You have souls within you, but they are not--" He interrupted himself. "There is someone I… have met. He likes pie. I thought it might help." Castiel turned and stalked toward the diner's entrance.

Methos tucked the Ivanhoe into his coat, the familiarity of the motion highlighting the unreality of the situation. It was a bit longer and heavier than the katana, but the hook and fold worked well enough. He followed Castiel into the diner and sat across from him in a booth. The waitress arrived, skinny and tired, with a pot of coffee. "Any chance of a beer?" Methos asked.

"Nope. You want coffee?"

Caffeine was the last thing he needed, but he said, "Thank you."

"Well, turn your cups over," she said, brusque and busy. 

Methos flipped his cup on the saucer, and watched Castiel as his fingers moved more slowly. "Yes." Castiel looked at the white china cup like it was something more holy.

"I'll be back to take your order in a minute," the waitress said, pouring efficiently.

"That won't be necessary. Two orders of blueberry pie," Castiel said.

The waitress narrowed her eyes a tiny amount, and Methos added, "Please," with what he hoped was a winning smile. She flicked an eyebrow when she left, and he sat back, raising the cup to his lips, and looked at the thing sitting across from him. The angel, if that was what he truly was, wore a trench coat over a suit with a loosened tie, looking more like an accountant after Happy Hour. It hit Methos, suddenly, that these were the oldest eyes he had ever seen.

Castiel held the gaze, looking directly at Methos with an expression that was pitiless, but not cruel, and he'd never seen that combination before. To steady himself, Methos took a sip from the cup he held. "Coffee seems real enough." He wanted to sit back, take his usual lounging pose, but he could not.

"It is real. Why do you doubt?"

"Because I killed someone, and a demon took his face, and made me see things. And when I tried to kill it, a great big hole opened up in its chest that sucked me through into that warehouse." Methos forced himself to set back, forced his mouth into a practiced smirk. "When does The Exorcist music start?"

"Music is not required for exorcism, and you are not possessed." Castiel tilted his head slightly. "I think rather that you _possess_." And with that his lips pulled in, and his eyes narrowed a fraction, and Methos knew, somehow, that this slight change was the same as a thunderous expression, and that he was being judged.

"I'm not a demon. A demon brought me here. Ahriman."

Castiel's brows moved down another fraction. "Angra mainyu. Generally the spirit of deception. Not an actual demon."

As soon as Methos heard the name his memories supplied an encyclopedia's worth of information, and he wondered why he hadn't know this already. "Originally not personified in the Zoroastrian religion, but eventually was given the name Ahriman." He ran his hand down his face, fighting the urge to lean forward and lecture, but still the words came. "First known single personification of evil in a recorded religion. Associated with the idea of the _daevas_ , false gods that deceived humanity. Root of the word demon."

Castiel said, "Ahriman was just a story. Words humans used to try to understand what they could not know. There is no such demon. Lucifer is something else entirely."

For the first time in his life, Methos thought he might believe that Lucifer was real. Castiel's certainty seemed deep, and Methos looked again. It was the first time in centuries that he had known that he was looking at someone older, far older, than himself. He was also fairly certain he was not in any Kansas he'd ever known. "Do you know what Immortals are?"

Castiel seemed to weigh his answer, and in the pause the waitress came and their pies were placed at the end of the table, along with two forks. Castiel looked at the plates, and moved one in front of him, using both hands and setting it exactly, turning the point of the piece toward himself. He picked up the fork. "I know what it is to be immortal. You are like me, and you are not like me." He gestured with the fork at Methos. "This is not a vessel."

Methos raised his eyebrows. "It's a fork." The joke was weak, but he clung to it.

Castiel looked at the thing he held, the back at Methos with a slight scowl. "Your body. It is yours, and yet thousands of souls are inside you like ghosts."

"I don't believe in souls, or ghosts."

"Or angels?"

Methos took the measure of Castiel's face, saw impatience and annoyance in the tiny movements of his mouth and forehead. He said, "I have seen only one thing in five thousand years of life that was in any way supernatural, something that I couldn't explain. Before today," he added, nodding as if in deference to Castiel. He reached for the pie and fork as a mundane comfort, even though he doubted that the pie was real. He'd been keyed up for weeks, and this was nothing like any of his scenarios for the future. Had the Prize been insanity?

"Have you no faith in anything?" Methos glanced up, and Castiel reached out with the hand that wasn't holding the fork in a white-knuckled grip. Methos flinched from the touch, not daring again to see and feel the vastness, but the hand remained outstretched. "I must know. You are opaque to me."

Methos leaned back, hand reaching under his jacket swiftly, and moving the gun quickly so that it was under the table, aimed at Castiel. "Don't touch me." 

A new voice said, "Huh. The whole 'Han shot first' thing?" Sitting next to Castiel, on the inside of the booth and leaning against the wall, was a lean young man with a chiseled face and plaid shirt. 

"Dean." Castiel turned, and his profile showing the ghost of a smile with the trace of warmth in his voice. "I do not understand the reference."

The man reached out for the plate in front of Castiel. "You're not gonna eat that, so why don't you let me have it." He picked up the slice in his hands and bit a piece out of the end. "Mmm," he said around the mouthful. "I like it here."

"I know," Castiel said. "It is why I came here." Castiel's body suddenly stiffened, his spine straightening, the jump of a muscle in his jaw. "You do not mean this diner. You dare take that form? Who are you?" Castiel's voice rose with each question, and people started to look their way.

"It's Ahriman," Methos said, shifting the aim of his gun under the table, for all the good he thought it would do. 

The demon smiled, a wolf's smile that fit the face he wore too well. "This place is awesome, and you guys? An angel, huh? Hanging out with one of the Four Horsemen? Fucking priceless."

"Is all of this one of your illusions?" Methos asked.

"Nope. You were touched by an angel. I don't think I could have made that up. Big as a skyscraper, blinding light, the voice. No. That wasn't me." Ahriman took another bite. "This place has a lot to offer. Angels. Demons. I have more options here than I did back there." He gestured with the pie. "Later. People to see and all that." And he was gone, and the plate sat once again in front of Castiel, the tip of the wedge pointing directly at him. 

Castiel looked at it, then up at Methos, confusion on his face, and it didn't look like an expression he wore often. "I have to know what that was. I have to know what you are." He looked deep into Methos's eyes and started to shake his head slowly. "I cannot see. There is too much. I should be able to see your life entire." Castiel reached out again.

"I have a gun aiming at you under the table. Do not try to touch me."

"No gun will harm me." 

"Still."

Castiel's lips pursed a tiny bit. It looked like impatience. "You should have faith."

"In what? I've _been_ a god."

"Not _a_ god. Put the gun away." Castiel looked at him with the same impatience, and then added, "Please."

There was something in the sound of the request, a contrast to the surety. The presence of Ahriman, and in the form of the man Castiel called Dean, had rattled him. And Ahriman had also called Castiel an angel, and that might mean it was true. Or all of this was Ahriman's illusion, and it would not matter. Methos glanced around to see if anyone was looking their way, and slid the gun back into the holster. He did not know if he was even in the same world where he had lived so long. Like Castiel, he realized that he needed to know. He stretched his hand out, palm up, fingers curled and relaxed. Castiel laid his own hand so that the tips of his fingers curved down over Methos', barely touching. The contact was not so overwhelming this time, and Methos had the feeling that Castiel was holding back. 

But he could see things, all of it the stuff of legends and holy books. He saw armies of shining beings, arrayed for war with weapons he could not understand. He saw the black streak of a plan, a concept, a mesh of nodes that would bring down destruction, and all of the work planned and done and left undone in trying to stop it. It was too big, too different from everything he had ever known, and he felt the angel probing through him, looking for the thread of Methos's own life among the thousands of Quickenings within him.

"You boys ready for a refill?"

The sound of the waitress startled them. They sat back, breaking contact, and Methos found himself gasping for breath. She rolled her eyes at them and muttered something, and Castiel looked at her and said, "This is not a stone you can throw, nor should you." His voice was intent and demanded to be heard. "The shame should not be in what you did with Carla, but in how you abused her trust." He looked back to Methos. "I was wrong about the pie." 

He touched Methos again, and the diner disappeared in a noise of beating air. They were back in the warehouse, and Bobby Singer was still unmoving on the floor. Castiel blinked a few times, as if to get his bearings. "Now."

"Now what?" Methos said, shaking his head and tamping down an urge to strike out. He did not like being yanked around.

"Now I understand. I did not believe you before, but you have walked on your Earth for five thousand two hundred and fourteen years." Castiel blinked. "And you have killed almost everything you ever loved."

Methos didn't know his exact age, but didn't doubt that the angel was right. He drew his sword, useless as he knew it would be. "And I've killed a lot of things I didn't love."

Castiel ignored the threat. "You were Death. Even today, you were Death." Today. All this had started today when he killed Duncan MacLeod. The well of grief tried to open, but he pulled a vise around his heart and it all sat heavy in the center of his chest. Castiel said, in the same voice he used with the waitress, "He should have been the champion. You were wrong. He could have lived with defeating you." 

Methos could feel his voice break as he brought his sword to bear. "That's not why I killed him."

"Yes, it is. You told yourself you wanted to spare him pain. You gave him betrayal. He couldn't keep from hating you in that moment as your sword went in. Killing him in that state, with hatred as fierce as his love for you, set Ahriman loose." 

Methos lowered the tip of his sword and closed his eyes. He could not argue. He started to look into Duncan's memories, and saw the last ones, felt his shock at finding Methos with a sword to his throat, and his final thought that after all these years he'd been wrong to trust, wrong to love. Methos closed the book, refusing to look further.

Then Castiel gave him something else to pay attention to. "You have created a problem, and we already had one of our own. This Ahriman is not part of this world, and neither are you. God did not create Immortals here, else I would have known.” Castiel closed his eyes, and there were tight lines around them. "This makes everything much, much worse." And with that, he was gone, but unlike one of Ahriman's illusions he did not simply disappear. Methos heard a distinct sound of wings. 

As the sound faded, their scene shifted. They were between a row of cars in an open field. "Singer's Salvage Yard," Methos said, leaning on Jim Wilson's memories. He walked over to Bobby Singer and picked up the shotgun. He placed it on top of a car out of reach, slipped the Ivanhoe under his coat, and the stooped to shake him. Bobby blinked and sat up. "Shit. I hate it when that happens."

"That makes two of us. Any idea where we are?" 

Bobby glanced around, taking in the row of cars. "My place, maybe."

Methos stuck out his hand to help Bobby up, and threw caution to the wind. "My name is Methos, and I'm not from around here. Any chance of a beer?"

Bobby looked at the offered hand. "Little early for that." 

"Where I came from, it's only morning because I've been up all night." He opened his hand. "I don't bite, and I could use a drink."

Bobby considered a moment more. "You gonna tell me how the hell we got here, and what the hell that angel wants with you?" Bobby nearly spat the word _angel_.

Methos nodded, and Bobby took his hand. "Fair trade," Methos said. "You tell me what kind of world this is where angels wear trench coats." As he braced to take the weight, Bobby's other hand slashed out, putting a shallow cut down the back of Methos's hand. He let go and Bobby fell back. "What are you doing?"

"Silver knife. Had to make sure you weren't a demon. We get a lot of those. Seems you ain't." Methos held up the hand, watching it heal and holding it so Bobby could see, too. "Ain't human either, eh?"

"No," said Methos. "About that beer?" He put his hand out again.

Bobby took it and let himself be helped. "You mind we have it on the porch?"

"I'm not a vampire, either. The invitation business doesn't apply." 

Bobby merely grunted, "Movie stuff," and picked up his shotgun from the hood of the rusting car, and led the way to the front porch of a large house. "Be right back."

Methos turned and looked down the drive. He still felt something of the power that had come in with the liquid Quickening, but he had no idea what to do with it. He'd spent the last decade as a monk in Nepal, and the reflexes of breathing and meditation were still honed. He turned inward, ignoring the disarray of so many new memories by imagining them as books he would need to shelve. The problems were more immediate and outside the sphere of any memory he had. Demons and angels existed here, and the sigils of superstition had real power. And the power he had felt for those moments after taking Duncan's Quickening? It was gone. He felt like himself again.

He was shocked out of reverie with a cold splash on the back of his neck. "What the—"

"Sorry," Bobby said, handing him a rough dish cloth. "Holy water." He waited while Methos wiped the water off his head, but a few trickles made it down under his shirt. "Here." He gave Methos one of the open beers and raised this own. They clinked the necks, and Methos took a long pull, but he noticed Bobby watching him.

"Hmph. You put holy water in here, too?"

"Nah. It's just Miller Lite." Then a smile cracked under Bobby's beard. "'Course I did. Just what the hell are you? Angel? Seems you got the coat for it."

"Does this look angelic?" Methos opened the coat to show the blades and the gun, and then let it fall. Bobby raised his eyebrows. "From what I can tell, I'm in the wrong universe. I'm an Immortal."

"Do tell."

Caution would not serve him here, and he had to trust someone, at least enough so that they would tell him what he needed to know. "Where I come from, there were Immortals that walked among humans. We weren't gods, although sometimes mortals took us as such."

"So you've been around forever?"

"No, only five thousand years. Five thousand two hundred and fourteen years, Castiel tells me. I'd lost count. We're all foundlings. No one really knows where we came from. We don't become Immortal until we die by conventional means. We come back to life after that, and cease aging."

"So you can't be killed at all after that? Even demons can be killed."

"We can be killed, but we come back to life." Methos was not interested in telling anyone how to finish him off.

"Look, Methos, did you say your name was? If we wanted to kill you, we could kill you, and salt and burn your bones before you had a chance to heal the bullet hole. We clear?"

Methos let himself give a grim smile. "That _might_ slow me down, but I've been burned at the stake before. Not sure what the salt would do."

Bobby grunted. "How many of you are there, back where you come from?"

"I'm the last. There was one other, but I killed him and it brought me here."

Bobby had stepped away from him. "You talking human sacrifice?!"

"What? No!" Methos stepped back also, feeling as shocked as Bobby looked. "No. None of that works in my world. There's only one demon I've ever seen. Ever. Angels, demons, they don't just show up." He shook his head. "After I killed…" Methos swallowed and looked away, not wanting to say the name. "After I killed the last, the demon Ahriman appeared, and the next thing you know I'm in a warehouse being shot at by a madman with rock salt." Methos looked back at Bobby, putting a rueful smile on his face. "It sounds like they're common here, but in five thousand years, I've seen only one." He took a pull from his beer. "Castiel said it was going to cause problems, it being here."

Bobby's mouth was a tight line. "You gonna cause problems?"

"Not intentionally."

"Why did you kill him? The last one?"

"We have a saying, _There can be only one_. Immortals were driven at the end to gather and fight until only one remained." A partial truth was the best lie, after all.

"So you didn't want to kill him?"

"Not particularly." Methos took a sip to cover all the things he meant in that small phrase. "Duncan defeated the demon once. Castiel said killing him set it free."

"Duncan's the one you killed?" Methos nodded, letting some of the pain show. Bobby grunted, and said, "What was that demon's name again?"

"Ahriman. It takes shapes, or rather it warps what you see. Illusions. Castiel said he doesn't know how to fight it. Something about this demon not being written."

"What's with this 'Castiel said' stuff. I'd never seen an angel before yesterday, and you two were havin' a cozy chat?"

"With pie, actually." Methos smiled at Bobby's snort. "I've never seen anything like him, nothing that could do what he does."

"This is gonna need something stronger. C'mon in. Looks like we got a lot to talk about, and I got most of a bottle of bourbon."

Methos followed Bobby into the house, and into a room full of books. The shape of the bindings and the age of much of the leather settled him, somehow. He loved books. "Nice place."

*****

Methos swirled the last sip of his second bourbon in the bottom of the glass. "It's a lot to take in," Methos said. "Resurrection months after death." He swallowed. "Not possible where I come from." But his memory gave him the voice of Ahriman, " _… maybe it is, but you aren't the one who can do it. Resurrection is not the province of such as you._ " He took a breath and held out his glass for more, tamping down the thought. "You don't seem too surprised that I come from a world where this is all fairy stories." 

Bobby grunted. "Sounds like a nice place." He poured for Methos, and then for himself.

"Ordinary evil is enough." Methos fell into his scholar's voice. "Ahriman was more of an idea of human evil, and the notion that evil mostly comes from being deceived by daevas, not because of Original Sin. No actual demons walking the world. I can't even say that I've seen Ahriman. Everything it showed me was deception."

Bobby didn't answer right away, and when he did, he changed the subject. "You said Jim Wilson in your world was one of you. Not here he wasn't. Rumor has it he ran off on his wife with some girl from off the Internet."

"And I’d guess the Bobby Singer he knew didn't hunt more than mule deer."

"Was he married, that Singer?"

Methos searched Wilson's memories. It was getting easier to pinpoint. "He was. His wife died in a one-car accident. Bobby-there was driving." Bobby made a non-committal noise. "Why? What happened here?"

"Possessed by a demon. Kind of how I got into the hunting business." Methos absorbed those short sentences and watched as Bobby knocked back the bourbon in his glass. Bobby-there had an edge of guilt and loss. Bobby-here had honed that edge into a weapon. Bobby met Methos's gaze. "Question is, what do we do now?"

"What do you know about the angel, Castiel?"

"Hadn't had time to look him up. We just met him last night." Bobby gestured at the shelves. "Might find out something about what he wants Dean for." Bobby got up and started pulling books, piling a few on the desk. 

Methos stood and started leafing through one. "The name Castiel means 'my cover is God'." 

"You find that already?"

"No," Methos said, pointing at his temple. "Someone's memory, but it isn't deep. Do you have a copy of The Heptameron?"

"Translation on line. S'where I got the summoning ritual."

"Can you look it up for me?"

"You ain't calling him here, are you?"

"Just let me see it." 

Bobby turned to his computer and brought up the web page, searching for the spot on the page with the name "Castiel". Methos looked at the Latin, ignoring the translation. "There are three angels of Thursday. Why did you call Castiel instead of these other two, Sachiel and Asasiel?"

"Medium said his name was Castiel. Thursday wasn't really on our radar."

Methos accepted that a medium here might be more than a charlatan. He skimmed, used to reading such documents but not used to taking them seriously. "It says here that Asasiel is associated with gladness and benevolence. Doesn't that sound more like someone who would raise someone from the dead? Sachiel… The name means 'the covering of God'." Methos stood back. "I don't know enough about this to say anything sensible."

"You can read the Latin that fast?"

"And older. This is based on something by Honorius of Thebes, filtered into Hebrew religion, sort of, and then translated into Latin. I always thought Honorius was a bit looney at the time, but his wife made the best beer." 

Bobby considered. "You knew him?" Methos shrugged. Bobby shook his head. "Guess the big question is, what do you want to do?" 

Methos looked at Bobby. "I feel like a stray crying at your kitchen door. I have no idea where to go or what to do." He poured another bourbon. "I don't even know if the money in my pocket will buy us another bottle."

Bobby leveled his gaze. "You're not an angel, not a demon, and you know a hell of a lot of ancient shit. You could hunt."

"There is only one demon he should hunt," said an even voice from across the room, underscored with a sound like wings. The words hit Methos's ears along with the sense of Immortal presence. "Ahriman."

Methos whirled, but his coat and his sword were near the door where Castiel stood. "How do I know you're real?"

"It takes the smallest faith. Have you none?"

"You've been in my head," Methos snapped, angry and wanting to fight, the andrenaline and bourbon mixing into something too familiar. "You should know."

"We have to find Ahriman, and send him back," Castiel said, his voice shot through with a palpable impatience that paired with Methos's own. "This is important. I cannot see him, and you must help."

"I must?" Methos answered, his voice a low growl.

"Neither you, nor it, belong here."

"So if we find him, you'll send me back with it, and that's that. I get to deal with it?"

"There's a bigger picture, Methos." Castiel said the name like it was poison in his mouth.

"It's not like I have a clue what the smaller picture is, either." Methos walked over to Castiel. "I did not ask to be here."

" _You_ opened the door. _You_ must close it."

"I don't know how. I tried to kill it."

Castiel nodded slightly. "With the blood of your beloved still warm on the blade, and the power of ten thousand singing in your veins, and all the murder in your heart fixed on that one goal."

The words sliced him, the truth salting the wounds. "So why did I fail?" Methos clenched his fist and stepped close enough to feel the brush of the hanging trench coat, breathing in a scent of ice and earth, his face mere inches from Castiel's.

Castiel looked directly into Methos's eyes, his gaze dangerous. He enunciated each word. "I do not know." Methos could hear frustration, as if these were words an angel did not often say.

"MacLeod defeated it. Somehow."

"Then I suggest you find his memories within you." 

And with that, Castiel was gone. For all that he could hear beating wings, Methos did not feel the slightest movement of air, just the absence of the warmth of Castiel's breath, the absence of his scent, and the absence of the buzz in the back of his brain. He stood frozen for a moment, and then he heard Bobby breathe out, "Son of a bitch."

It was more than adrenaline. With the buzz in his brain gone, Methos unclenched his fist, consciously relaxing a control he'd been barely aware of exerting, but it was enough that when he looked at his hands, his fingers were trembling. He put on his accustomed face before turning back to face Bobby. Methos said, "Is it just me, or does everyone want to smack that look off his face?"

"Couldn't tell if he wanted to kiss you, or hit you," Bobby said, sitting heavily in the chair.

Bobby's observation caught him short, but Methos didn't let it show. "I've been told I have that effect on people."

"He's right, though. If this thing can make you see anything it wants and doesn't have any kind of form, it's not really like anything we ever fought." He ran his hand down his beard. "I need to call the boys. See if they've seen anything." He reached for the phone. "From what you said, it's already taken Dean's shape." 

"Or made us think it did." Methos put on his coat, picked up his glass, and walked back out to the porch. The air was cool but not cold, and the sun was far enough up to give warmth as well as light. He stepped down into the drive and looked around the salvage yard until he found a spot that wouldn't be shaded for a few hours. He set the glass down on the porch railing, and walked into the row of cars, selecting a yellow Gremlin. The ugly, rusting shaped suited his mood perfectly, and he pushed himself onto the hood, folding his legs as far as his jeans and boots would allow, straightened his back, and began to breathe. It was time to shelve the library, the memories of all the Immortals who had ever lived, and to read Duncan MacLeod—Duncan's life, Duncan's loves, Duncan's bitterness like wormwood at the moment Methos's sword plunged in. He couldn't do it. He sifted through every other memory that might help, but he could not open the book of Duncan MacLeod.

The sun had moved more than half way up the sky when Methos felt the presence again. Castiel said, "Have you found the way to defeat Ahriman?"

Ten recent years of meditation training barely stood in the face of that demanding voice. Methos fought the urge to leap from the hood and wrestle the angel to the ground, fought the urge to scream his frustration and his grief. Instead he slowly opened his eyes, keeping them narrowed against the sun. "It doesn't make sense. I've been through every memory of every priest, but it doesn't apply."

"You need to take this seriously. You need to see what we're up against." Castiel walked over to where Methos sat, and reached out with two fingers toward his knee. 

"Stop." Methos said, letting the anger and the hurt of the last two hours into his voice. Castiel paused, looking absurdly like he was about to bless the Gremlin. "If you want my help, you ask. You do not command." Castiel moved only his eyes, raising his gaze from Methos's knee to his face. Methos's jaw tightened, looking into the piercing blue. Castiel looked angry. Methos sifted through his own memories. "Nine orders of angels. Angels, Cherubs, Seraphim, Thrones, Dominions, Princedoms, Powers, Virtues, Archangels. What are you?" Castiel's mouth tightened. Methos said, "Soldier of the Lord, you said. You are a Power."

"You do not know what that means."

"I know the _story_ , the myths, and in my world that is all it is. Powers keep history, they say. Powers keep the conscience of humanity. No Power has ever fallen from grace, they say, because they are absolutely loyal to God."

"With my brothers and sisters, we keep chaos at bay." Castiel's hand was still outstretched hand in the ancient sign of blessing. "You have let in a chaos we cannot fight. You must solve it."

"I am not part of your rank and regiment," Methos said. "You can't give me orders." MacLeod would have gone without question. MacLeod would have wanted to make it right, whatever it took. Methos only wanted the buzz in his head to be gone, the memories in his body to be gone, and MacLeod to be dealing with the idea of angels. "Not me," he whispered.

Castel looked down at Methos's knee, breathed deep, and said, "Please."

Methos slid off the hood of the Gremlin, and Castiel raised his arm out of the way, the two fingers now pointing skyward in a priestly gesture Methos knew too well. He was close enough that their chests nearly touched. Methos did not step back, and the adrenaline surge, the anger, made his hand twitch toward his sword unbidden, moving just enough to be stopped by hitting Castiel's hip. He wanted to grip it, to make the angel feel something, but what, he wasn't sure. He was untethered, and more alone than he had ever felt in his very long life.

He let his fingers tighten on the fabric of Castiel's trench coat, and dropped his head with a snort. He put a smirk on his face, loosed his grip and looked up, inches from Castiel's face. "Why not? I've nothing better to do."

Castiel touched the two fingers to Methos's shoulder, and he felt the vastness again. 

They arrived in a farmyard. "This is what the demons of this world do. This is what will become commonplace if Lucifer is freed."

"They'll raise pigs?" Methos said, sniffing the air. Something was foul.

"There will be Hell on this earth. Torture and pain and fear."

"Been there," Methos said. "Done that. Held the branding iron."

"You do not understand. This is not ordinary human evil." Castiel turned and stalked away. Methos followed, the stench becoming worse until it rivaled the Great Stink drove him out of London and back to the Levant. Castiel walked to where a man leaned on the fence of a pig sty, a farmer with a hay stalk in his teeth, permanently sunburned. He turned at their arrival, and his eyes were black pits. 

"Angel," the demon drawled. "I suppose I should be scared."

"You have no idea," Castiel said, and with that, and an economy of righteous violence, it was done.

"Is this what you do most days?" Methos asked. He heard the pigs, making the kind of happy grunts they only made when eating. Methos glanced over to where there were three of them, muzzles bloody, ripping through cloth to get to more of the flesh. It was a person. He'd done that before, long ago, to dispose of a body. 

Castiel turned away from the farmer's body and looked at Methos, then at the pen. His hands were at his sides, gaze direct. "No. This was for you."

"I'm honored, but what did I just see?"

"That man was possessed by a demon." 

"So that's what you do all day? Kill demons?"

"No. These are the vermin on the battle field."

"Why did you kill both of them? Can't you just drive it out? You know, scary music and schoolboy Latin."

Castiel turned away, his back to the sty, looking out across a field green with winter wheat. "It is easier to kill the demon and the vessel both."

"And the vessels are just damaged goods, anyway?"

"Sometimes. They see everything the demon does with their body. They feel it all. How many can survive that?" Castiel turned back to Methos, gesturing to the sty. "That was his son he fed to the pigs. How could he live with that, and what would the temporal powers of this region have done to him? He did not deserve prison for an act he did not commit." He gestured again, and the pigs' silence was abrupt. Methos did not have to look to know they were dead.

"You are unmoved by this?"

Methos said, "I've done worse. I'm no demon. Will you kill me?"

"There is even worse to be seen." It wasn't an answer. Castiel walked toward Methos, moving as if to walk past him, but touching him with two fingers as he went by. They appeared in a new place, a house, and Methos had to turn to watch Castiel walk to what appeared to be the kitchen. As he turned he took in neat arrangements, clean lines disturbed by a few toys—a truck carefully parked, and a stuffed lion. There was a smell of cooking, or more like a charred smell of meat. Then he heard a noise, one he knew well—the sound of a woman trying to scream around a gag.

Methos followed Castiel in to the kitchen, but the angel had stopped just inside the doorway. Methos had to look around him to see. There was a woman stretched out with her back to them on the counter next to the stove, tied so that she could not move. There was blood running down the counters and down the front of the cupboard door in stark contrast to the sterile neatness of the rest of the room. The blood was from her lower legs, where her calves had been sliced, shaved nearly to the bone. There was less blood than there should have been; her bonds included neat tourniquets over both knees. Part of Methos admired the handiwork, but when he took in the rest of the scene, this was nothing he would ever have done. This was beyond the worst of the Horsemen's violence.

Next to the stove stood a boy, about six years old, Methos thought. He held a strip of meat on the point of a large knife, roasting it over the open flame of one of the burners. He turned to face them, eyes black under a tidy fringe of sandy hair, mouth smeared with blood and grease. Under the black eyes the boy's face smiled an innocent smile, and in a child's voice it said. "Would you like some? It's delicious. I'm getting a little full, but there's plenty more."

Castiel reached and started to step forward, but Methos caught at the collar of his coat. His fingers brushed the skin at Castiel's neck, giving him a brief, disorienting moment of _vast_. "Wait."

Castiel shook him off, but turned. "What would _you _have me do?"__

Methos could hear in the word that their brief touch had re-awaked Castiel's scorn for him. He kept his voice even. "You can heal."

Castiel shut his eyes. "He was conceived in sin, the child of a man not her husband, conceived in a single night of lust while her husband served at war. In part of her, she hates him because the pregnancy meant that the affair became known, and the marriage ended."

"So?" Methos said.

Castiel blinked.

Beyond the angel Methos saw the demon move, plunging the knife between the woman's things with a sure stroke. Blood began to pour over the counter. He had hit the femoral artery, and she would be dead in moments. A black mist a smoke began to rise from the boy's mouth, and Castiel turned, plunged his hand into it and twisted hard. Methos felt a wire of sensation tear through him like an inaudible shriek, and then it was done, and the boy collapsed on the floor, trembling and soaked between the legs, the tang of urine adding to the charnel stench.

"No," Castiel said, and he stepped to the woman, lifting her in his arms like a child as the ropes fell away. He kissed her forehead and she opened her eyes, her legs suddenly, entirely whole again. Castiel set her in a chair at the kitchen table, and she stared open-mouthed as he went down on one knee next to her son, two fingers out stretched. To Methos eye the touch was gentler than he'd seen the angel use before. Castiel waited a moment, eyes closed, before he rose and turned.

"Susan," he said, "I am an angel of the Lord, and you will remember this day, but he will not. The demon that was in him is gone."

"I don't understand." She was pale and trembling

"You will." Castiel reached toward her, but she recoiled, and he dropped his hand. "Very well. He will sleep until morning. I suggest you clean the mess so that he will not ask questions you do not want to answer." He gazed at the woman for a long moment. "You were right. Your husband was also cheating on you. It does not justify your betrayal of him, but you are forgiven." Castiel turned to Methos and closed the distance between them in a few steps. "Is that what you would have me do?"

"You left her with the memory."

"She will love her son the more, because she almost lost him." Methos nodded. Castiel looked away. "You have seen enough."

"Indeed I have."

With two fingers, Castiel brought Methos back to the salvage yard, in front of the yellow Gremlin. He spoke as if they hadn't moved. "That is what the demons do on their own, disorganized and taking any opportunity. The armies of the Lord do not chase such rats, but you had to know. We have a bigger problem. If Lucifer is freed, if the rats become organized, what you just saw will be as nothing. We must find Ahriman and send him back. If he were to ally with the demons even without Lucifer, we could not predict the results. He is not written."

"You keep saying that." Methos swallowed back something that wasn't anger. He didn't know what it was, but the sight of that child roasting his living mother's flesh? That disturbed him like nothing else had, beyond anything Methos would have done, even as Death. "Was what happened back there written? Did someone ordain that the boy would be possessed and eat his mother's legs? Was it written that you would heal them instead of killing the boy, too, and leaving the mother to die or be crippled?"

"With my brothers and sisters, we fight the demons. We bring the will of the Lord. The demons bring chaos."

"If I had not made you pause, what would you have done to the boy? Killed him and left the woman to die?"

Castiel turned away, lips tightening into a line. Methos bit back a smirk, and then let it show. It seemed the angel wasn't used to anyone arguing with it.

"Do you think I did the right thing with the woman and her son?"

Methos shrugged. He didn't know what the angel wanted. "You showed compassion. Not only for them, but for the people who love them." He was almost surprised to hear himself say it. Maybe all that Buddhism had rubbed off.

Castiel appeared to ponder for a moment, and Methos let the silence stretch, looking away. Finally he heard, "I do not understand you. I cannot see you."

"I am not written," Methos said.

Castiel missed the sarcasm. "No, you are not. I need to understand." He reached out and touched the back of Methos hand, and at the touch of skin on skin, Methos felt himself stretched along with Castiel until he was as big as the Great Pyramid, and the voice that rang through his entire body said, _Show me._ Methos felt the curiosity wrap around him, intercalate through him. _Show me_.

*****

"Candygram," he said, one foot on the landing.

"You're not dead."

"As always, your powers of observation astound me, MacLeod."

The sarcasm hit as intended, and Duncan's face dropped into a scowl. "Three letter word for donkey. Starts with 'A'." 

"Not the first time I've heard that. Can I come in?"

"I -- Yes, of course." Duncan stepped in and to the side, and Methos watched him slip the katana into a scabbard in the umbrella stand. Chinese. Blue willow. Early 1800s. "Can I take your coat?" 

Duncan fell back into courtesy as a shield, but Methos had no intention of letting him put up that wall. They had loved each other too long for that. He put a hand up to Duncan's chin, then slid back to grip the short hair. "Don't bother. Six months. Feels like decades." He dropped his backpack off the other shoulder and closed the distance, bringing his lips within an inch of Duncan's, breathing in the tea, the tang of anxiety, the trace of expensive cologne. The air nearly shattered between them, the brief touch further strengthening the bond of the shared Quickening that linked them more deeply than emotion alone. But the thin threads of emotion ran through it, inextricable.

Duncan's voice rasped with questions. "I always worry that you're dead. You could have emailed. Text message?"

"Don't you think you'd feel it if I were gone?"

"I wonder," Duncan whispered.

Methos could feel the pulse rising under his fingers, and then Duncan's hands sliding up his back, pulling him closer, through that last inch. They collided in teeth and tongues, and Methos let himself fall in, fall under the desire and the fierce joy that was not wholly his own. Their connection made it difficult to tell, most of the time, but Methos opened himself on purpose, taking in everything that the Highlander gave, giving back. 

He tasted metal in his mouth, the slick-sweet of blood from Duncan's teeth on his lip, and all Methos could feel was Duncan's _want_. Something dark skated under Methos's skin, some new need, but he pushed it aside.

They made it to a bedroom, shedding clothes on the stairs and in the hall. Duncan toed out of his loafers somewhere along the way, but Methos had to stop and untie his boots, pulling them off and setting them aside so that he would know where to find them again. That was the only interruption, the only moment of clear-headedness before they slid together, skin on skin, kissing to bruise and biting, futile as it might be, to mark. They had never been this savage before, not even the few times Duncan used sex to express his anger.

Methos slid down, finding Duncan so hard his cock was tight against his belly, and he wrapped his mouth around it, sinking down beyond the gag in one move, craving the scent and sweat that is only found between a man's legs. But not any man. This one. It wasn't enough, and he backed off, taking Duncan's length in his hand and nosing directly between his balls and his thighs, mouth open and breathing in, tasting, running his tongue across the sac, trying to imprint himself with his smell.

"Slow down," Duncan moaned, his fingers in Methos's hair, not trying very hard to move him away.

Methos backed off only to shift and sink his teeth—just enough for pleasure—around Duncan's nipple, sucking in the point and worrying the nib with his tongue until Ducan's moans became wordless, and Methos felt a feral joy at giving him pleasure. He wanted to bite harder, but he pulled himself back. "No," he said, and took Duncan's cock in his mouth again. He wanted no finesse, just raw lust and Duncan straining under him, wanted to feel him thrust up and lose control it until he bucked, and Methos could feel each pulsation as his mouth filled with desert musk, bitter and sweet at once. It was almost enough.

Methos shifted again as Duncan lay panting, in control of himself once more now that Duncan's need wasn't echoing through him. He didn't know what he wanted, where to land, but a strong arm snaked out and caught him, bringing him in close for slow kisses. Long minutes of gentle lips and tongue were sweet, and he tried to memorize every motion of Duncan's mouth. Eventually need rose, and Methos couldn't help rubbing himself against Duncan's thigh, grazing his teeth on Duncan's lower lip. "Let me," Duncan said, and started to sit up, but Methos pushed him back. 

"No. Fuck me." As sweet as it would be to take Duncan, he needed this more.

"I'm not ready."

"I can get you there," Methos said. He slid down and took Duncan's cock in his mouth again, sliding his tongue around the softened shaft and the sucking it in with his nose was buried in Duncan's balls, inhaling the fresh sweat. Part of his brain thought about pheremones and chemical imprinting, rationalizing. As Duncan hardened, he had to pull back a bit. He used all the arts he had ever learned to please a man, savoring the taste and the slide on his tongue. He felt Duncan's hand on his own prick, bringing it to aching hardness, matching the art of Methos's mouth with the art of his fingers. They were familiar with each other, and knew what would give the most pleasure

And when Duncan's hand began to lose its studied skill, when he was ready, and more than ready, Methos lay back, head toward the foot of the bed, and tugged on one of Duncan's hands. "Now." He needed more than sex, but sex would do, and would take the edge off, but couldn't substitute for the deeper need he felt rising, the need that drove him away again, eventually, every time he came back. He splayed his limbs out, displaying and inviting as he had once been trained to do, and he could feel the effect on Duncan, who should have been slaked and slow, but who reared up at the sight of Methos in a wave of lust and wonder that Methos could see in his face.

Duncan seemed to catch himself. "You. We need—"

"We don't," Methos cut in. "I'm ready." And he was, but Duncan used a questing finger to be sure. Methos had walked in the door prepared. "Do not make me wait another six months. Now."

Methos felt the strong hands move his legs, and he watched as Duncan positioned himself, sliding in with enough force and care to make it good. Duncan's body was as hard and lean as it had ever been, and his hands on Methos's legs were firmly calloused, and Methos should not have noticed these things, but Duncan wasn't moving. He was looking down.

"I can feel it coming."

Methos knew what he meant. It sang under his skin, but he pretended otherwise. "I can't, but if you'd just bloody well move, I might feel something coming."

"The Prize…"

"There is no Prize."

Duncan reached down. "Yes there is. You're here." It was exactly the kind of romantic thing Duncan would say.

But the look in Duncan's eyes wasn't tender. It was wild, barely restrained energy, and Methos knew why even if he didn't want to admit it. "I am here, and if you would please just move." _I walked through the streets prepared like a whore for you. Fuck me already._ Methos canted his hips as best he could, and Duncan gave in, a smile that matched his first slow thrusting, but his face and his hips shortly giving way to an urgency he shouldn't be feeling so soon after… after…

Methos matched every movement he could, but Duncan had his legs up and his arms braced, trapping him. He gave up and gave over, letting his body feel everything radiating out from where they joined—the fullness of Duncan inside him, the warmth where skin met, the give of the mattress against his back—until it suddenly collapsed back into one point of explosion that ran down his legs and through his belly as the tension rose up to the ultimate release, the pulse of life, the little death. Duncan slowed and leaned down, resting his forehead on Methos'. Methos breathed in, took Duncan's ragged breath into his own body, smelling the afternoon tea now mixed with the aftertaste of come in his own mouth, smelled his own come now slicking between them, the scent of clean sweat and body musk. He could feel the tension under his palms as he slid them down Duncan's arms. "Go," Methos said. "Take it."

Duncan's response was a sound of need and confusion, rearing up on his hands and letting go in a pure rut that he had never seen from Duncan in the hundreds of nights they had spent together. Methos rode it, looked at the rigid muscles and the near-rictus of Duncan's face as he slammed into him, all violence and power, freezing as he came again. His unguarded face held uncertain sorrow and pain.

Long moments later, Duncan said, "That—"

"Shhh," 

Duncan pulled himself together and slid back, then fell beside Methos. "Did I hurt you?"

"No way I didn't like," Methos said, sliding out of bed to avoid more trite words. "Bathroom." He waited until he saw Duncan nod, and made his way to a door where he could see a mirror beyond. The bathroom was large, one of Duncan's towels on a hook, and a pile of fresh ones on a shelf. It was almost as impersonal as a hotel. Methos turned on the water in the shower, stepped in as soon as it was warm, and cleaned himself quickly, using Duncan's towel to dry himself. 

Walking back into the room he looked up and saw his old Ivanhoe over the bed. "You kept it." Duncan's own Katana was in the umbrella stand, but Methos's sword had the place of honor. It warmed him.

"You left it with me. It's part of why I thought you weren't coming back." The words thrummed through him. Methos did not drop his gaze from the sword, but stepped across the room until he had his hand on the hilt. "It's yours," Duncan said. "Take it."

Methos fought the sudden urge to pull it off the wall, take the hilt in two hands, and take Duncan's head. He took a breath and let himself think it, to let himself put into words what was in him, not just under his skin, but starting to radiate from his bones: The Gathering was going to start soon. He slid his hand off the sword, fingers trailing over the hilt, and looked down. 

Duncan looked back at him sated, parted lips just slightly tilted into a knowing smile. Methos could not look away. Under the Gathering need that skated under Methos's skin, buried deeply at the center of his chest, at his very core, he loved Duncan MacLeod. This man--of all the many hundreds of people he had bedded, the dozens he had married--this was the one that lived at the heart of him. 

"Are you all right?" Duncan's face had turned questioning, and Methos blinked, wondering what expression he had worn. He didn't want Duncan to see what he was feeling, never wanted to show him just how deep it went. He slipped back into the bed and lay on his stomach, propped on his elbows. Duncan rolled toward him and reached to run a finger down Methos's long nose. "I'm glad you're here."

"Glad to be here." And he was. He wanted nothing else.

"How long this time?"

"Maybe a week," he lied. "Adam Pierson has a research position at a small university with delusions of global worthiness," he lied. "I'm off to dig up some of my old pottery." Duncan snorted, and Methos dropped into the banter Duncan expected. "Well, who better than me will know where to look?" Methos dropped his head, hiding his face. He wasn't sure he could stay even a week. In the middle of fucking, Duncan had said he could feel something coming. The Gathering was starting, and being together would make the urge to fight into a command. No, they wouldn't last a week.

But Methos wanted those seven days, and more, and he cursed Immortality and the Game.

He felt Duncan's fingers on the back of his hand, and then realized that he was standing, clothed, feeling the weight of sword and weapons in his coat. 

*****

The lingering sense of love and slaked passion over tension of loss anticipated, realized, suddenly morphed into a taut wire of anger. He looked into Castiel's face as he jerked his hand away. "How dare you?" he said, hearing his voice go low, dangerous, uncontrolled. Methos balled his hands into fists, and looked up. Castiel's expression was raw, reflecting every bit of the pain Methos felt at the memory of Duncan. "How dare you?" Methos said again. "You are no better than Ahriman."

"That was no illusion. That was a true memory." Castiel's voice almost broke, but he didn't look away like a normal man would, didn't hide the naked combination of wonder and pity. Methos felt no pity, and would not look away. If his gaze wounded, he would let it wound. Castiel finally blinked. "I know. I always _know_ , but I have never _felt_."

Methos let his lips curl in a feral smile. "Yes, well for compassion there has to be some sense of empathy." His words would be his weapons. "If you _keep chaos at bay_ by killing, by destroying the lives of those who loved the vessels you kill? These _vessels_ , as you call them, are people. They are like mayflies to me, their lives so short and inconsequential, and they must be like, what, microbes to you? But to themselves? They are all they have, all they know." Methos took a breath, and his memories presented him with everything he needed. " _Even the least of these_ , isn't that what it says? _Whatever you have done to even the least of these—"_

" **Enough!** " Castiel's true voice broke through, pounding in Methos's ears, shaking his bones apart, his organs bursting in a fire of pain, and the last thing he heard before he died was the breaking glass in the surrounding cars.

He revived on a couch in Bobby's house. He looked around. Castiel sat stiffly in a chair, his hands on his thighs, watching, but he did not move when Methos sat up. Bobby was slumped over his desk. "You have to stop doing that to him," Methos said. 

Castiel ignored it. "Your presence here upsets the order of things."

 _Upsets you_ , Methos thought, but he said, "Then how do we get me back?"

"You must take Ahriman with you."

"How do you propose to find him?"

"Oh," said a voice Methos recognized from the diner. "He'll find you."

Castiel rose, looking past Methos to a hallway beyond. "Come not in that form," he began, the words carrying a weight of ritual.

"I like this form. It's young and kind of hot." 

_Dean,_ Methos remembered. He said, "So, where have you been, young man? Your mother and I have been worried sick."

The lean face smiled. "Well, _Dad_ , if you must know, I've been wandering around looking to see what this place is like. You know what the beautiful thing is? I'm not like anything here. Even the demons don't know what to do with me, and that's just like the all-night diner of unending pie."

Methos kept his voice light. He needed to play for information. "I don't recall that you ate."

"You don't have a clue about what feeds me," the shape of Dean said. Methos realized that Ahriman spoke more like a young man of this age, not the way he had in Kronos's or Duncan's form.

Duncan. There was a memory there, but Methos couldn't quite grasp it. What did Ahriman need to survive?

Castiel rose from his seat. "Let me send you back where you belong."

"I don't think so." And with that he was gone.

Methos rose from the couch, murmuring in an ancient language, " _Nothing can also be done by him without Time_." The phrase rose up from somewhere in the library of lives and memories. It was a quote from a Zoroastrian text, but it seemed like it should mean something. His glance fell on Bobby, still asleep at his desk, and it reminded him of why he had been dead. He turned to Castiel, who seemed frozen on the spot, his trench coat rumpled. Methos's anger had faded a bit. He circled to look at Castiel's face, and found him with his eyes closed. "You in there?"

The angel's eyes snapped open, and the searching, blue gaze held the slightest hint of apprehension. "I must ponder many things." 

Methos reached out quickly to grab a handful of sleeve. "Don't go." He didn't know why he said it. "We have to work together."

Castiel looked down to where Methos gripped his coat. He closed his eyes again. "Let go." Methos didn't move. "Please," Castiel said, the slightest hint of pleading in his voice. "Please let go."

Methos loosened his fingers, but did not drop his hand. Castiel reached up suddenly, leaning forward, as if to place his hand on Methos's face, and Methos knocked the hand out of the way, reflexes as fast as if it were an attack. Where their skin brushed for a moment, Methos felt that now-familiar stretch into vastness, but this time it had something else. Castiel had seemed cold before, like the stone or metal of the metaphorical buildings that Methos had been using to make sense of the sensation of size, but this time it was colored with something new. Confusion. Want. Repudiation.

"Fuck," he heard Bobby groan. "Not that again." Methos glanced over. Bobby raised his head, blinking, and Methos remembered Bobby's wife, demon possessed. Given what Castiel had just shown him, his respect for Bobby grew.

There was a beating sound against the air, and when Methos pulled his eyes away from Bobby’s face, Castiel was gone.

***

Methos rinsed the taste of ash from his mouth and spat. "Well," he said, "That was interesting."

"Least you're not freaked out by a salt and burn," Bobby said. 

"No, once I decided that I was in Wonderland it got easier. It's like Ghostbusters, only it makes more sense without the pseudoscience." Methos shrugged. "I'd read a lot of the texts already. Now I just have to act like it's real. Bit of a new game, really." It hadn't been that hard at all.

The growl in Bobby's voice surprised him. "This stuff can kill you. Hunters _die_. If you hadn't had my back just a few minutes ago…"

Methos sobered. "I know."

"No, you don't, Mr. _I'm Immortal_." Bobby snorted. "Sorry. Always have a bit of a, y'know, buzz or something after one of these."

Methos gathered himself. He undersood the buzz, because he felt it. It was like the old days when he didn't mind being part of the Game, when he hunted. It wasn't quite like being Death, but it fed some of the same hungers. Hunting gave him a reason to be alive. He also had an idea of what Bobby Singer had lost. He stepped up next to Bobby, not looking at him, but watching the flames with him. "Ahriman. Remember him?"

"That demon that brought you here. The one that shouldn't exist here."

"The same. The way he can take any form, you know, the illusions? He can, well, not kill, but make sure people die. Even Immortals."

"What happened?" Bobby asked, blunt and tired.

"My friend. The one that I killed," Methos began. He wasn't sure how to convey what had happened. "Ahriman tricked him into killing his own student."

"Another Immortal," Bobby said. It wasn't a question. "So you can be killed." Methos nodded, knowing that Bobby was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Wanna tell me how?"

"Not particularly."

"Can't help keep it from happening to you if you don't let me know what it is. Fire?" Methos shook his head. "Stake through the heart?" 

Methos huffed a laugh. "Survived several of those."

"Beheading." Bobby didn't ask, but Methos nodded. "Figures. I'll try and keep you away from guillotines and people with axes."

"Swords, mostly. That's how we fought, how we Challenged each other. We knew that at the end there could be only one." Methos hated the way the words sounded in his mouth.

"But if you were all supposed to kill each other anyway, what's the big deal about killing a student? You trained each other to kill each other?" Bobby pulled out a flask. "That's fucked up."

Methos shook his head. There was too much to explain. "It was something we could choose to do until the Gathering, that final drive. We trained students to help keep them alive, to give them a fighting chance. I may have killed my friend, but I didn't exactly want to."

"Was he your student?"

 _My greatest love._ Methos thought, expecting to have to push down pain, but he felt nothing but a vague amusement remembering how many times he manipulated Duncan into learning some new lesson. He let himself smile. "I stopped taking students centuries ago."

Bobby snorted. "How old was he?" 

"About four hundred years. A puppy, really."

Bobby snorted again. "He was your student, just like the Winchester boys are mine, even though they don't know it." Out of the corner of his eye, Methos saw Bobby shake his head. "I don't like the idea of Ahriman out there. They have enough to deal with without something like that."

"You called them."

"I warned them."

"Good thing. Ahriman damaged my friend that day, making him kill his own student. Making him take his Quickening."

"What's that?"

"The power of each Immortal. When another Immortal takes their head, they also take their power."

It took Bobby only a moment to put it together. "So you're the last. You have all the power combined." Methos nodded and reached for the flask, taking a long swallow as Bobby talked. "So why the hell're we wasting time on salt and burn jobs? I was going easy on you to get you into the hunting life. There's demons! There's Lilith! If you've got all that power, we could take on some of the big guns."

He handed the flask to Bobby. "I have no idea if it means anything here."

"From what you say, Ahriman's got all his same mojo. Cripes, but I hate the idea of that thing being in my house, looking like Dean." He took a drink. "Any bright ideas on how to get it out of here?"

Methos waited for Bobby to take another drink, and reached for the flask. "That moment of power, the only time there was real… _something_ I felt I could use, I tried to use it on Ahriman. That's what brought me here. If I try that again, I'll probably just end up somewhere different."

Bobby looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Power. Like some kind of mojo?"

"Never felt it before, and never since." Methos took a long swallow. "All I have is memories."

"Memories?"

"All of them. Like I told you. It's how I knew your name. I can remember everything every Immortal has done or seen."

A new voice joined them. "And you can't remember what to do with me, can you?"

Methos looked up. Duncan MacLeod's face looked back from across the flames. The figure began to walk toward them, circling the fire. It seemed to reflect in his eyes, giving them a brief, red flare.

"Who the hell're you?" Bobby asked.

"It's Ahriman. Trust nothing you see." Methos capped the flask, put it away, and drew his sword. 

"So this is what you've come to, Methos? Putting wee ghosties to bed?"

Methos sank to guard, and murmured, "Stand back, Bobby." Louder he said, "Passes the time. What have you been up to?"

Duncan's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Wouldn't you like to know." And then he was gone. 

Methos looked around, started to sheath his sword, and then saw the look on Bobby's face, a terrible mix of joy and anguish. Methos had no idea what Bobby was seeing at first, and then there was a slim brown-haired woman in jeans and a pretty shirt standing close to him. Jim Wilson's memories supplied the name: Karen, Bobby's dead wife. She was smiling, limned by the fire that was still burning behind her, and it couldn't have been the fire that gave her eyes the flash of red. 

"No," Bobby said.

"She's not real," Methos said.

Her voice was no-nonsense, just like the practical, funny woman Jim Wilson remembered. "Are you sure, Bobby? What do you really know about this guy?"

Methos saw bright reflections in the creases of Bobby's eyes. "Don't make me do this again." 

The figure changed to a pink nightgown, the blood from what looked like bullet holes streaming down her chest, and the voice turned cruel. "Don't want to kill me again? That would be fine with me. How about another roll in the hay for old times’ sake?" And she stood nude, flawless, arms outstretched, more beautiful that any of Jim Wilson's memories.

Bobby took a half-step forward, and then closed his eyes and turned his back on the apparition. That wasn't enough. It disappeared, from what Methos could tell, but Bobby began to turn and turn again, as if he were trying to keep his back to something, his eyes firmly closed. Methos watched as the apparent torments increased, and Bobby started shouting, "No! You are _not_ Karen!"

"Bobby!" Methos stepped forward, and then paused as Bobby began to fight the air, first with his fists, and then with the small silver knife. "Bobby!"

He seemed to get through that time, because Bobby froze for a moment. Methos stepped toward him. "Is it gone?" Bobby turned toward Methos, and his eyes widened. He gave a wordless howl and jumped at him, fighting wildly, the silver knife slipping between Methos's ribs.

He'd been stabbed enough times that he knew it had missed the heart. He would likely live, but the sudden weight in his chest told him his lung was beginning to fill with blood. He tried to stay on his feet, managed to block the next thrust of the knife, but Bobby Singer was mad.

Methos shouted his name, but Bobby's eyes were wide, focused somewhere else. He shouted, "NO! That isn't true!" as he slashed again with the knife, but Methos didn't know what he was talking about. Bobby was looking at something Methos couldn't see, something that painted lines of anguish around his mouth. If the glimpse of the woman was any indication, Ahriman was torturing Bobby using the form of Bobby's dead wife. 

The first stab woulnd was starting to heal when when Bobby sliced the knife down his left arm. There was nothing for it. With the pommel of his Ivahoe, he struck Bobby on the side of the head, knocking him out. He stepped away from where Bobby lay, far enough that he hoped he wouldn't accidentally hurt him, and closed his own eyes, determined not to see what Ahriman brought next.

"Why did you have to spoil my fun," said the voice of Kronos. "I should have come after _you_ in this form," said the voice of Duncan, low and behind Methos's ear. "You wanted to fuck me as much as kill me, but we know which impulse drives you most, don't we, Methos?"

"The impulse to survive."

"Oh, that you have. Survive at all costs, no matter who you hurt?" The voice changed mid-sentence, female and melodious. Cassandra.

"You'll have to do better than her," Methos said. "She didn't matter to me."

"But I thought I did," the voice said. "There's a word for what you did to me. Stockholm syndrome."

"That's two words." Methos needed to learn more about Ahriman. He'd only heard about him from Duncan, really. What had Duncan done to defeat him? The damn Highlander had never said, just spoke in uncharacteristic cryptic words. What the hell did _I embraced him_ mean? If Methos embraced Ahriman, he'd be Death again, and God could help them all. If there were angels, there must be a God here.

The voice shifted back to Duncan's, "You've killed everything you ever loved. Everything you professed to love." And then there were voices circling him. Methos couldn’t tell how many, but they spoke in languages that curled together, each accusation of his falsehood, his betrayal, his murderous deed in a cacophony of hatred, so much hatred targeted at him. He dropped his sword to his side, and tilted his head back, enduring. If this was what Ahriman had done to Duncan, he wouldn't have been able to endure. He would feel every word at his core; it was no wonder he'd swung at Richie. He probably thought he was one of Ahriman's illusions.

That clear thought became his anchor, and he tuned out the noises. He was no guilt-ridden child like Duncan MacLeod to be led to insanity by his past. Ahriman would have to do better than this childish prattle. It was boring. "Oh, shut up," Methos said.

The voices went silent, and Methos opened his eyes. He saw Bobby Singer struggling to get to his feet. The fire was burning down, but there was enough light that Methos could see a bruise starting to rise. "Sorry about that," he said, offering his hand.

Bobby looked at the hand, and to Methos's face. "You're real?"

"I'm real, and whatever you saw, that was from Ahriman."

"Son of a bitch." He let Methos pull him to his feet.

"I’m sorry he used Karen on you." He took the flask from his coat pocket.

"That wasn't all he used." Bobby reached for the flask, and after a long pull he said, "I hate that demon."

"Let's go, shall we?" Methos said, but he was thinking. He didn't hate Ahriman. He wasn't sure he hated anything. 

*****

Methos scraped a match, waited for it to catch fully, and tossed it on the still-moving body in front of him. Green twigs of fingers snatched at the spark, but they were soaked in gasoline, and the fumes rising from the wendigo's hand caught fire before it caught the match.

"You're wasting time." 

The voice was both flat and strangely compelling. Methos didn't didn't turn around. He'd missed the sound of wings in the noise of the catching flames. "We've got to stop meeting like this. People will talk." 

"You're wasting time," Castiel said again, a hint of frustration rippling through it.

Methos wondered when Bobby would get back from replacing the gas cans in the truck. "I'm fighting in your war." He tucked his hands in his pockets and watched the elongated body writhe with the last of its strength.

"We are not fighting monsters under the bed. Lucifer must not be freed from his cage. Ahriman is a distraction we do not need." Methos felt Castiel step close, felt the handle of one of his hidden knives pressing in as his coat was compressed, felt the breath and smelled the ice and earth that his brain now associated with _angel_. The whisper in his ear was like a lover's, despite the words. "Three of my brothers are dead, and they slew each other. They did not fall in the war. Ahriman must have deceived them into fighting each other. This cannot go on."

Methos stepped away. Castiel did not follow, but he kept talking. "Duncan MacLeod defeated it. Duncan's memories are within you.”

"I don't know what he did."

Again, the only sign was a tremor in Castiel's voice, but Methos felt the frustration, the anger, the accusation run through him almost as deeply as if it were said with the true angelic voice: "You haven't _looked_."

And it was true. Duncan's memories were the ones Methos did not want to see. He still could feel Duncan's sense of betrayal from the one brief glimpse taken weeks ago, right after he'd fallen through Ahriman and landed in Wonderland. But if he wanted to find anything else, he was going to have to face it down. Castiel said, "There is no forgiveness without confession." 

"I have never asked for forgiveness from MacLeod." 

"I did not say it was MacLeod that needed to forgive you. And he cannot. He's dead." The last words echoed in Methos's head, cracking through the shell--yet another layer of shell--that he'd wrapped around himself. He had howled his grief when he woke up in the warehouse in this misbegotten _wrong_ world. He had felt almost nothing since, and certainly not since Castiel had forced him to re-live the last time he and Duncan had made love. 

Even now that memory had no force, nothing but an empty ache. The wendigo body burned to a charred shape, the flames flickering down as the fuel was used up. Methos turned to look at Castiel. "So?"

"Find out what he did, or let me look for you." Castiel had the slightest hesitancy in his voice on that last bit, although his face was as impassively intent as ever. Methos looked at him for a long moment, and Castiel said, "Are you afraid? I would not have thought you a coward."

"I'm all kinds of coward," Methos said, "but if I can go where _there be dragons_ with an angel on my shoulder, what could I fear?" He wanted to laugh, but he didn't think that Castiel would understand the irony, and they stood with their gazes locked on each other, the flickering of the fire in Castiel's eyes reminding Methos of both the angel's true form and Ahriman's illusions.

The moment was broken by the sound of a shotgun being cocked. "Just what the hell is going on here?"

"It's okay, Bobby." Methos turned to look at him. "I think I have my ride." He glanced back at Castiel, who nodded gravely. He walked over and stuck out a hand. "If I don't come back, you take care of yourself."

Bobby looked at Methos's outstretched hand, grabbed it, and used it to pull Methos in for a rough hug, hampered by the gun in his left hand. "You get that fuckin' thing, you hear me?"

"I'll do what I can." Methos stepped back. "Will you be all right?"

Bobby shrugged. "Not like I ain't had nothing like that happen before. If you come back, well, it ain't like you won't be welcome."

"I can't keep track of the double negatives."

Bobby grunted a laugh. "I'll be fine. Come back if you can."

"I will." Methos wished he had something to give him. He wasn't generally the sentimental sort, but they'd had a few good weeks of hunting. In his coat he had spare knives, so he reached in and drew out a hunting knife, the tip slightly curved to a point. It was good for skinning, and sturdy enough for utility work. "Maybe this will be useful."

"Can't give a knife. Cuts the friendship," Bobby said, digging his free hand into his pocket. "Here, I'll buy it from you," and he handed Methos a penny. 

Methos looked at it. The design was subtly different from current version of the US penny in his own world, he thought. Wasn't Lincoln supposed to be in profile? He hoped to have the chance to compare it soon. "Done," he said, "and a bargain at the price."

They nodded to each other, and Methos walked back to Castiel. "Let's go." Castiel lifted his fingers and they appeared in the warehouse where Methos had first come awake in this world. He looked around at the sigils, and the circle on the floor where they stood. "Now what?"

"Now we look into your memories, and we find Duncan MacLeod, and we learn how he did it." Castiel leaned in and touched his forehead to Methos's, and Methos fell. 

*****

_The sense of a Quickening woke him, first as a threat, and then as a comfort. There was only one person he could recognize through the Quickening alone. He relaxed, listening to the quiet sound of someone taking the stairs by twos. As the door swung slowly open, he sat up. "I knew you were alive." He drank in the sight of Methos in dark leather, a katana in his hand. Duncan didn't glance up at the Ivanhoe over the bed, Methos's own sword, but looked at the ancient blade, thinking the old man was sentimental sometimes. The katana was Duncan's weapon, and he couldn’t help but think that Methos had chosen it at least in part for that reason._

_He started to tell him to put the blade away when Methos brought it up to rest at his neck. He swallowed back his words, and felt the blade nick with the slight movement. It was the kind of thing Methos would do, had done, to prove a point. Duncan wanted to believe that was the goal now, but the resurgence of his own hunger, the dark need that had driven him to the Gathering, made the hope a faint one. "Not funny," he said._

_"Not joking," Methos said. Duncan felt the blade shift, putting the point against his neck and killing the hope that he would live through this. The point pushed into the flesh, and he heard Methos say, his voice cracking slightly. "There can be only one."_

_He had hoped for better from him. He wished he had loved him without reservation, but the truth was, he had loved him despite his reservations. The story of the snake came unbidden, and a serpent's voice said, _You knew what I was when you took me in._ Still, he had to try, one last time, and he fought to keep the bitter disappointment from his voice. "This should be a fight, not an execution." _

_"I can't risk losing,"_

_The words lanced into Duncan's heart as the sword went in through his neck, and in the last flickering of consciousness he saw Methos, impassive, reaching for the Ivanhoe, and he felt hatred--for Methos at the betrayal, and for himself for trusting that the snake wouldn't bite._

*****

Methos pulled away, stumbling to the far wall. "No!" But Castiel was right behind him, not letting him absorb the memory, hand on his arm, forcing him around, pushing their heads together again.

This time he didn't fall. This time he could page through, and he could feel that Castiel was with him, sifting, turning pages--whatever metaphor worked at any instant in the process of trying to find what Duncan had learned in his scant 400 years that made him able to defeat Ahriman.

He could see memories he wanted to follow. He wished he could see what it was like for Duncan on the day they met. There were other memories he had to skirt. The death of Tessa Noel was limned in pain. The day he killed Richie was wrapped in black silence.

 _Wait_ , he thought/said to Castiel. He let himself briefly imagine a little cartoon angel in a tan trench coat sitting on his shoulder, so the answer came to his right ear.

_What?_

_We're doing this wrong. We have to go first to the place where Ahriman defeated Duncan._ _We're doing this wrong. We have to go first to the place where Ahriman defeated Duncan._

 _But that is not what we want to learn._ Methos could sense the impatience.

 _We need to know that to understand_ how _he learned._ Methos moved to the memory of the abandoned race track, of the day Duncan had taken his own student’s head. They stood back, observers behind Duncan's eyes, mere witnesses to his confusion and pain as he saw Richie, Horton, and Kronos, heard the words that sliced through him, watched him swing his sword at phantoms. It was no wonder that when the real Richie came forward that Duncan mistook him for Ahriman, and swung, realizing in the instant before his blade cut flesh that this was his student and his friend and that he could not stop the razor-sharp edge on its path of destruction. 

Castiel watched with him, watched through Duncan's eyes as Methos and their friend Joe Dawson arrived too late, felt Duncan's pain as he dropped his sword, and knew from Duncan's memories that he meant never to return. 

_So that's how it looked to him_ , Methos said.

He felt Castiel's grumble. _What happened next?_

_Let's ask him._

And they paged through the memories, the long boring days of introspection. Methos almost missed it, but there it was, the thing that Duncan had realized: Killing Richie Ryan, his own student, was not the worst thing he had ever done. In believing the righteousness of his causes, he had killed and maimed. Looking at his actions from the other side, from the view of those who thought their purposes as meet and right, he would be seen as a monster. The revelation wasn't sudden, which was why Methos had almost missed it. It was subtle and it grew, and Duncan came to understand that there was right, and there was wrong, and there was perspective.

Following the line of Duncan's memories, Methos gave in to his desire to know, to understand what it was Duncan had thought of him, and he fell into a moment. It was a strange double memory, because he could remember his own feelings while seeing it from Duncan's memories. He expected the door to be slammed in his face, and he remembered his surprise that Duncan met him without a sword in hand.

*****

_"Candygram."_

_"You've used that line already." Duncan wasn't sure why Methos had come, but he knew who it was from the moment the feeling hit. Something must have happened during that simultaneous Quickening. He was glad to see Methos, even hopeful._

_"Classics are always the best. Got any beer?"_

_"I keep it in anticipation of your visits," Duncan said. He wanted Methos to feel welcome. He had no idea how to tell him what he thought about Methos as Death of the Four Horsemen, about how he could never reconcile Methos kindnesses and bravery and love for fragile things with the self-centered, cold-blooded killer. If Methos were a woman, he'd be able to forgive more easily, to say it with his body and shared pleasure. It wasn't like he hadn't taken that route with men before, but it was usually by finding women together, or those rare occasions when they took it out on each other, steeped in violence. Methos wouldn’t be like that, he knew. He didn't know how he knew. And Methos didn't need forgiving. From another view, Duncan was no better, no less needing of forgiveness. Everything he believed about Methos, someone had believed about Duncan himself._

_"It'll be stale then," Methos said, and it took Duncan out of his thoughts, took a moment to realize Methos meant the beer would be stale._

_"You're not the only one who drinks it." Duncan got him a beer from the refrigerator, and Methos followed him to the kitchen, close when Duncan turned. Duncan froze, finding Methos so near, putting the beer on the counter, unopened. "What?" he asked, knowing the answer. The years of flirting were coming down to this moment—he could feel it from Methos—and it was his decision. He felt_ want _under the pulse of Methos's Quickening, but not just lust. It was far more complicated. Methos didn't move, just cocked his head and looked into MacLeod's eyes. It was all there. "Why now?"_

_"Why not?" Methos said, and wasn't it just like the man._

_Ducan saw something in Methos's expression he couldn't put words to, but reminded him of a wild animal. One false move or word, and it would be over. "Now, then," he said, and because he knew Methos wouldn’t move, he leaned in, hesitating at first, waiting for Methos to back away. For a moment he wondered how to do it, whether to treat him like a woman or a man, gentle with the first kiss, or rough. And then he decided to treat this like the first kiss of many with a person that he loved._

_Duncan wasn't ready for the spark, or ready for the way that Methos opened up to him. He felt relief and desire and love. Duncan marveled at five thousand years of experience channeled into feeling for him. It was overwhelming, and it broke loose something inside, the last ribbon of doubt. He would take the risk._

_The evening became a haze of sensation, Methos’s technique like a courtesan's but his touch striking sparks against Duncan’s sweat-damp skin. As their fire burned down, he began to laugh into Methos’s shoulder._

_"So that was funny?"_

_"It's laugh or cry, Methos."_

_"Why?"_

_"Because I don't know if this will ever happen again." But that wasn't it entirely. He felt reckless._

_"How does…" Methos pretended to check a calendar. "…tomorrow morning sound?"_

_Duncan rolled to face Methos, all laughter gone. "Seriously, Methos, what is this?"_

_"Whatever you want it to be, MacLeod."_

_Duncan reached for Methos's face, looking into those enigmatic eyes, and for the first time, trusted what he saw. "I want it to be you. That means I don't expect to pick out curtains, or make some handfasting ceremony, or any of that. I'm not even sure I expect you to be here in the morning, but I do want you to come back."_

_Duncan sensed threads of emotions through the shared Quickening, but only one he could name: fear. He pulled his hand away as Methos turned to kiss it, preparing to guard himself again, but Methos reached up to hold his hand in place. "I will come back, and if someone else is here, I will come back another time."_

_"Who could ask for more?" Duncan said, and leaned in to kiss him._

*****

Methos pulled himself out of the memory, found himself standing in Bobby Singer's living room, surrounded by books, his face inches from Castiel's. Castiel had his hand on Methos's cheek, and his pupils were wide.

Methos stepped back, an ache sliding into his chest with the memory of walking in like he owned the place, because he had expected Duncan to slam the door, and had barely prepared himself for welcome. He remembered deciding to take the risk, the way his heart had been pounding in the moment before Duncan kissed him, and how his nerves gave over to his instincts, and to artifice so honed that it felt natural. He thought about Duncan's own sense of risk, that this would cement them, or end them, and Duncan's decision to trust. That trust had been the deepest gift Methos had ever been given. He would not let this thing, this _angel_ take that memory to his own purpose. "How dare you?"

Castiel's hand was still raised, but now folded into a fist. "I have never felt what you felt."

"I thought you knew everything."

"It seems that there is knowing and understanding, and they are not the same. I want to understand what you feel for him."

"I thought you wanted to find out how to defeat Ahriman."

"I think…" Castiel began. He looked at his upraised hand, and then moved it to his lips as he raised his gaze again to Methos. "I think it is related. Let me…"

"No," Methos said. "It wouldn’t be the same."

Castiel's eyes drew together a fraction. "I see. Shall we continue?"

Methos closed his eyes. "All right." But he didn't take them to memories of Ahriman. He ventured into memories did not want to dare, but he had to know.

*****

_It was the first time she had ever talked like this. Sure, she had teased him about his age, but now it had an edge, and then suddenly the edge was gone. "Mac, I know there have been others…" He kissed her neck, pressing her deeper into the couch, wanting to distract her, but when she was fixed on something, she never wavered. "Other loves," she finished. "After a century or two, do you learn how to cope?"_

_"Cope? With the loss?" When Tessa didn't answer he raised his head to look at her. "Hmm?" She nodded. He looked into her eyes. He didn't have an answer prepared, and he spoke carefully. "No matter how many years go by, or how many times you say goodbye to those you care most about, when they leave—"_

_She shook her head. "Die," she whispered, not letting him take the easy road._

_So that was it, and he knew she was ready for this, that he would do her no favors—in fact would dishonor her—with anything less than the truth. He smiled, but sadly. "Yes. When they die," he said, and she swallowed, but he pressed on and said deliberatly, "you're naked, and alone." But he couldn't stay in that moment, couldn’t let her dwell on it. "But we shouldn't talk about what's going to happen when I'm four hundred and twenty, or four hundred and forty…"_

*****

Methos pulled himself out of the memory. He could feel it, the depth of Duncan's feelings for her: Tessa Noel, who was killed not long after. There were more of Duncan's memories he could brush through, other women that Duncan had called _the love of my life_ , but none of them sparked the depths that this one—blond, French, an artist—had evoked.

Not the other women, not the few men, and certainly not Methos. Methos had the memories of Duncan's feelings for him, and they could not match what Duncan had felt for this woman. Perhaps her murder was what had enshrined her. It didn't matter. She was the one, and all others, even the enigmatic Methos and the best sex of Duncan's life, took second place.

He felt defeated and hollow for a moment, and then he felt angry. _I gave him **everything**!_ But had he, really?

"But he did love you." Methos had forgotten about Castiel, who was looking away as he spoke. "There was a…" The angel paused, and his head turned further as he looked for the right word. "He had a passion for you, but he could not be vulnerable to you. She let him be everything he was, even weak."

Methos had never seen Castiel look away when he spoke. This gaze and his words had always been too direct, but this he had barely enough courage to say. They stood silent for a moment, Methos letting his anger drift. He was too old not to see it for the petty jealousy it was. He made a decision. "Do you want me to kiss you, angel of the Lord?"

Castiel's gaze snapped up. "What?"

"You said you wanted to feel." He stepped forward, and took Castiel's face in his hands, bracing for the sense of vastness, but it didn't come. Castiel remained within the skin of his vessel. Methos leaned in, his lips almost brushing Castiel's, breathing in the earth and the ice. 

"No," Castiel whispered. "I can see it now. It is not the kiss. It is everything behind it." He reached up and grasped Methos by the wrists, and pulled his hands away. "No," he said again, his voice stronger. "You are not the one to teach me this.

Methos said, "Are you sure?"

"Your passion will be anger, and still I would not know." If Methos didn't know better, he might have thought he detected a longing in Castiel's voice. It echoed something in him—a longing to be the first in Duncan's eyes, the way Duncan had become first in his own. 

Methos stepped back and pulled his hands from Castiel's loose grip. He nodded with a slight bow. It would have been a kiss of anger and frustration, that was true. "We still have work to do," he said. "We still don’t know how he defeated Ahriman."

Castiel held out his hand, and for the first time Methos saw it as invitation, not demand. He put his hand out, and as their fingers touched he opened the book of Duncan's memories, and he found what he needed, watching from Duncan's eyes, and trying to understand what he had done. 

_Duncan moved through the kata, a meditation form. He knew he was in a church, but Ahriman gave him the illusion of standing outside a cave, so he ignored it, focusing on the unity of body and mind. When the form of Kronos rushed out, attacking, he dodged it artfully, each move simply the motion of the kata. With every attack he simply moved aside, treating it like a dance, and refusing to engage, blocking him while ignoring him, until at last he stood at rest._

_Ahriman, in the face paint and skins of Kronos, walked up to him, hesitated, and then thrust his blade forward, but Duncan did not move, allowing the weapon to slide through his body without flinching. There was no pain, and form of Kronos and his sword disappeared like all of Ahriman's illusions. From behind him, from all around him, Duncan could heard a hoarse cry of rage, stretching out through the night._

_Duncan went onto one knee, casual and comfortable. "Isn't it time for you to leave?"_

_Ahriman used a familiar, hated voice and answered, angry and sneering, and Duncan realized there was an edge of desperation. "I've only just begun."_

_Duncan shook his head, opening himself to his meditation again. "You have no place here."_

_Ahriman tried another tack, threatening. "I'm a part of you now."_

_Duncan smiled, a curl of lips. "You always were."_

_In a flash of images and a blaze of white light, Duncan found himself kneeling alone on the rug in front of the church's altar, and he breathed, and opened himself. He was everything, and nothing._

*****

Methos pulled himself out before he became lost. He hated the sensation, even as he recognized how important it was to Duncan. Methos searched those last memories, that mental state, the no-state, that Duncan had achieved in his meditation. Methos had spent plenty of time in these last years hiding in Nepal with monks who expected meditation practice, but he had never been able to become everything, become nothing in the way the monks had tried to teach him. He was too much himself, too proud of his long survival. Meditation had taught him only to accept his own paradoxes.

He looked at Castiel, surprised to find him staring into the distance, his mouth open in a muted expression of shock and dismay. Methos couldn't help feeling again as if he was seeing an emotion that was new to the angel. After a moment Castiel turned his gaze to Methos. "How?" he breathed. "How did he do that? Only God… And not even… What _was_ he?"

"He was the best of us," Methos murmured. Methos could not shake the thought that Duncan had loved him knowing that he was himself no better than Methos, though he'd once thought his choices were just; and Methos had loved Duncan because he wanted to shelter himself in something better than he was. The irony choked him. "He accepted all that he was."

Castiel blinked and shook his head slightly, an attenuated motion as if to clear it. "That cannot be. There is good, and there is evil, Heaven and Hell."

"Humans are not all one thing or the other."

Castiel had a brief, dismissive expression. "Of course. That is Original Sin, but the good and the evil should be at war."

"As you are at war, assured of your righteousness?" 

Castiel nodded, his face returning to the impassive mask he usually wore.

"We justify all manner of atrocities," Methos said, his memory flashing images of villages devastated behind the Four Horsemen, of the faces of scared farm boys in British uniforms falling under Duncan's sword, of a mother struck dead because a demon chose to ride her.

Castiel looked away, then stepped back, eyes widening. Methos followed his glance and saw the form of Dean Winchester.

"Castiel, what are you doing here, and who is this guy? Where's Bobby?" he asked in tones that were cautious, curious, and aggressive, all at once. He stood balanced, as if ready to move. With training, Methos thought, he would be a very good fighter.

The tone of voice, the body language—it was different. Methos looked carefully, but there was no flash of red in the eyes, nothing to indicate this might not be Dean in the flesh. Bobby talked about Dean and his brother from time to time, but they had not met. 

Castiel blinked. "Bobby Singer is coming back from a hunt. Methos and I are exploring his memories to determine how to defeat a …thing that doesn't belong here."

"If it's a hunt, I'm in." Dean stepped forward. "How do we kill it?"

"We don't know," Methos said. "Zen it to death, from what I can tell."

"Zen?"

"I think…" Methos started, and then thought for a moment. "I think it needs hate and fear. It creates illusions, manipulates responses. If you don't respond, it has no power."

Dean's eyebrows scrunched together. "Kind of makes it hard to fight. Or do you just stand there?"

"I think any response is enough," Methos said, "even thoughts and feelings. Bobby tried to ignore it, but he couldn't."

Dean straightened up. "That thing went after Bobby?"

"He's all right," Methos said. "He's on his way back."

"Well, how'd you get here, then?"

"Angel express," Methos said, nodded toward Castiel. When he looked, he noticed that Castiel was looking elsewhere, avoiding Dean.

"So," said Dean, "I, uh, have to confess I've been here for a little while. You two were just standing there and holding hands."

"We were looking through my memories for a way to defeat Ahriman." Methos said. 

"Ahriman?" 

"Long story," Methos said. "It's the name of the thing we have to send back."

"Back?"

"To where I came from. Think of it as a different dimension."

"Okay," Dean said, drawing it out, disbelieving but not questioning. "Any idea how?"

"That's what we were trying to understand," Methos said.

"Why do you have to look in your memories? Don't angels just know stuff?"

"He is not written," Castiel said, looking at Methos but speaking to Dean.

Dean scratched his head, stepping into the room. "Y'know, I got here a good five, ten minutes ago, and um, it looked something else might be going on. I mean, kind of a surprise to see an angel looking like he was about to start making out." 

"That is not—" "That's not—" Castiel and Methos began together, but Dean kept walking toward them, his eyes on Castiel.

"But he wasn't the one you wanted, was he?" Dean said. He closed quickly on Castiel, gripped him tight by the upper arms, and began to back him toward the bookcase. "Was it me?" And he pushed his mouth onto Castiel's, forcing it open, forcing his tongue. 

Castiel did not fight back, did not move, and his eyes were wide, unfocused. 

Methos froze because he did not know Dean, and did not know if this was something he would do, but the look on Castiel's face was too much like Bobby's, and he knew in a moment that this was Ahriman. This was an opportunity. He and Castiel had both seen Duncan's memories of defeating the demon, but Ahriman was probably torturing Castiel with his illusions, and Castiel did not seem able to be everything and nothing, or whatever it was Duncan had done with his meditation. Castiel's hands began to come up, tentatively, as if to embrace the form of Dean, and Methos knew he had to interfere. 

Methos reached to grab the form of Dean by his shoulder, but his hand made contact on nothing. Castiel's coat was deformed by the demon's hands on his arms, but Methos reached again and found nothing to grab, watching his hand go through the plaid shirt. He moved and grabbed Castiel by the arm, yanking his body along the bookcase and out from under the monsterous kiss. 

Ahriman let him go, laughing. "Delicious," it said in lilting French accents, suddenly petite and blond and Tessa Noel. "Would you like to know what it was that Duncan loved about me more than he would ever love you?"

"No," Methos said, trying not to react, using the past ten years' schooling of his mind in the monasteries of Nepal. He felt Castiel pull himself free from his grip. He let his thoughts open. That Duncan had loved her more was a fact, and knowing the reason would change nothing. He would accept his jealousy and put it behind him. She smiled broadly, her manner more brazen than anything in Duncan's memory, reminding Methos that this was Ahriman. He tried something different. "How do you know you wouldn't love me more than you loved him? I'm much older, and far more exciting."

The eybrows went up on the fine face, and Methos looked for red in the wide, blue eyes. "I loved him for his weaknesses, and named them strengths," the figure said, the lilting tones too sweet. "He found comfort in me, and just enough challenge, and he he understood me, but I could still surprise him. You were all challenge and mystery. You were _work_ , and you seemed to like it that way, and he loved you despite it. No one could love you the way he loved me, because you will not let them."

Even the master of illusions could speak truth. It had spoken truth to Duncan, but it had not cut him so deeply as this truth did Methos. And when Ahriman began to change, to circle him as Duncan, as Alexis, as Cassandra, as Kronos, in a hundred accusations from loves that he had failed, Methos could ignore it by strengthening his shell. He could not open himself, lose himself, as Duncan had done. And at his failure, Ahriman laughed, derisive and piercing.

And then it stopped. _Exeunt omnes, cacharrando_ , Methos thought, but his heart was racing underneath the practiced cool. 

He opened his eyes to find Castiel staring at him, a shade of concern on his face, and a hint of something lost. For Castiel, it was almost a look of despair. "He kissed me." He turned and spat. "I can still feel it." He spat again, shaking his head a bit, as if to clear it. "I… I am _tainted_.

Methos closed his eyes for a moment. He could not say what impulse drove him, but he remembered Castiel's surprise that Methos could perceive his true form and voice, and he remembered his own voice saying, _There's more_ room _in me_. He stepped toward Castiel. "Was that your first kiss?"

Castiel's eyes snapped up, wide as if caught out, but he nodded.

"Allow me," he said, and he took Castiel by the shoulders, gently moving him so that his back was no longer to the bookshelves. Castiel allowed himself to be moved, not dropping his gaze. "This is what it should be," Methos said, and he closed in, bringing his lips to within an inch of Castiel's, breathing in the ice that was his breath and the earth that was his body. He moved his hands to Castiel's face, holding it gently and consciously reaching past the skin, then sealing the connection with his mouth. He felt the now-familiar sensation of stretching, of vastness, and at the same time he felt Castiel's mouth open gently under his, felt their toungues touch in a tentative dance. 

In the aweful sensation of all that was Castiel, Methos could taste the dark stain of Ahriman's kiss. He pulled it to him, separated it and took it into himself, leaving Castiel in the brilliant, diamond reflection that was his true self. And, for a moment, he could feel Castiel's true voice trumpeting thanks and relief.

Methos stepped back, dropping his hands and feeling the sensation drop like a knife, cutting him off from something so much larger than himself. For the first time he felt it as a loss. He reached out again, and only trusted himself to touch cloth, so he pulled gently at Castiel's loosened tie. "Better now?"

Castiel nodded, looking at the floor. When he said nothing else, Methos waited, glad of the silence to pull himself together. Suddenly, as if the kiss had not happened, Castiel said, "I could not do it." Methos looked to see Castiel holding out one hand and gazing into the palm as if the answer would be found there. "I remembered what you remembered, and I felt his memories in you. I took them in me so I would know." Castiel looked up, and his voice dropped. "What he did, this Duncan MacLeod, I cannot do." 

Methos let half of his mouth curl, controlling the sensations left over from having been stretched with Castiel. "I can't do it, either." 

"I am what God made me. I cannot be everything or nothing. I am what I am." Castiel's voice had a shade of anger. "What do we do?"

"What _can_ you do?" Methos asked, the question snapping out with a sudden force from his unresolved emotions, his need to be himself.

"Anything." Castiel looked down at his outstretched hand again. "Almost… anything."

Methos snorted. "We can neither of us find the Zen to do what Duncan did. Unless you can send me back in time, so that I can decide _not_ to kill Duncan MacLeod, I don't know how to beat this thing."

"Of course," Castiel breathed. "I should have thought of that."

"Thought of what?"

"Sending you back in time."

Methos didn't want to believe. "You don't even know where I come from."

"I can find out," Castiel said, and then he was gone.

Methos was down to the last two inches of bourbon when Bobby came into the house. "Sorry about leaving with another date."

"I been ditched by prettier," Bobby said, putting down his backpack and walking over to take the bottle from Methos's hand. "Drunker, too." Bobby uncapped it, and found a glass, pouring out three fingers worth and leaving it on the table, far from where Methos slumped on the couch, before plopping down in a chair. "So, what happened?"

"We couldn't do it. We figured out what MacLeod did, but we can't do it."

"Why not?"

Methos snorted. "We aren't good enough."

"What? I've seen you in action, and c'mon, that's an _angel_ you're dealing with. How the hell are you not good enough?"

Methos was drunk enough that he wasn't sure if he could make it make sense to Bobby. "Not that. I mean good, like good and evil."

"Isn't _good_ supposed to come with the whole angel package?"

Methos shook his head, and regretted it. It had taken a lot of bourbon down quickly to get him to this point, and it wouldn't last long. He tried to explain Zen and no-mind, and wasn't sure if it was coming across, but finally Bobby started laughing at him.

"Man, you are lit."

"But do you get it?"

"Yeah, I get it. So what are you going to do?"

"Castiel's off trying to find out where I come from so he can send me back in time."

"In time for what?"

"In _time_." Methos levered himself off the couch. The drunk was fading thanks to Immortal physiology, and he really wan't ready to feel anything yet. Where had Bobby put that bottle?

"Wait, you mean he's going to send you back to before…" Bobby's voice trailed off, and Methos could hear him inhale.

"Before I killed him, yes." Methos almost hissed the last word, dragging it out as he staggered across the room. He banged his thigh on the corner of the table, but caught the bottle before it tipped over. Methos upended the bourbon, taking two harsh swallows, then looked at the small bit left and thought about drinking it. Instead he took it over to Bobby, walking carefully. "Here."

He knew what Bobby must be thinking. If Castiel could go back in time, was there something Bobby could do to keep his wife alive? "Don't."

"Don't what?" Bobby grunted.

"I have five thousand years of _what if_ , and it doesn't do any good. _If only_ doesn't work any better, either."

"But you get the chance!"

Methos said nothing. Anything he said would make it worse for Bobby, who was still coming down from a hunt, edgy with hating and loving what they did. He sat back on the couch, and then lay down. If he slept, he wouldn't feel anything, either.

*****

He came awake all at once, the sensation of a Quickening wired into his sense of danger. He rolled off the sofa into a crouch, looking around for the source of the noise and for his sword. When he saw Castiel standing in the middle of the room, he relaxed a fraction. Bobby was nowhere to be seen.

"You could knock, you know," he said, rising and moving toward the kitchen. He needed something to eat. Castiel followed him and stood out of the way while Methos made coffee and toasted bread while it brewed. Castiel said nothing, which was not like him. Every time Methos glanced his way, he met those piercing eyes. The coffee maker made its final gurgle.

"Breakfast?" he asked. Castiel shook his head, so Methos took a bite of toast. "Figure it out?" he said around the mouthful. Castiel nodded once, his eyes never leaving Methos's face. He swallowed the toast and said, "In most human cultures it is impolite to stare." Castiel said nothing, so Methos stared back, washing down bites with sips of coffee. When he had finished he said, "Well, what do we do?"

Castiel stepped forward and put two fingers on Methos's shoulder, and with the rush of wings they were in the warehouse with the symbols on the walls. The doors were still open, and in the interveneing weeks, leaves had blown into the building. Graffitti tags had been painted over some of the sigils on the walls, but the circle where Methos had arrived was intact.

Castiel said nothing, still. He led Methos to the circle, and reached up with both hands for his face. Methos braced himself, but it did not come. There was only warm skin, the press of lips in a chaste kiss. Blessing and benediction. Castiel walked to the edge of the circle and began to walk around it—widdershins, Methos noted—and when he completed the circuit he faced Methos and nodded once, gravely. 

The ground opened beneath him, and Methos felt like he was falling, but there was no wind of passage. When he landed, he was on his feet, ten steps from MacLeod's front door in New York, watching himself pull out a pistol with a silencer. He watched the figure start to turn with the feeling of an unexpected Quickening, but his own sword was already out, already moving, and Methos, the oldest immortal, took his own head.

There was no lightening with the quickening, almost no sense of change, just a long moment of resonance, as if a bass string deep within him had been plucked. When it passed, he looked at the set face of the severed head, and remembered wearing that same grim expression. Methos picked up the pistol, shot the lock once, and dragged the body inside. He wondered if there were any Watchers any more, some decade after the Gathering, to clean up after them. 

Methos went up the four flights of stairs making to attempt at stealth, feeling MacLeod's Quickening. He opened the door to find the Highlander sitting up in bed, turning to face him. "Candygram," he said, as he always said when he came back from months away.

MacLeod almost sighed. "I knew you were alive." 

Methos could hear the relief and welcome and caution in MacLeod's voice, but he couldn't give in. Duncan's eyes flitted to the sword in his hand, still wet with the blood of his younger self. Methos glanced at the Ivanhoe hanging above the bed and said, "Put some pants on. I'll meet you in your dojo." If there could be only one, it would be a fair fight, and if he won, Duncan MacLeod wouldn't hate, wouldn't let Ahriman free, and Ahriman would die with him.

MacLeod looked at him, suddenly completely awake, and nodded, swallowing. "Now, then?"

"Now," Methos said. He turned and went down the stairs to the floor below, shedding his coat and other weapons. They would do this right. He waited in the dark, holding the Ivanhoe by the hilt, point down, breathing and waiting for the surge of need, for that sense under his skin that he needed to kill, for even just the surge of adrenaline before a fight. He felt only calm.

MacLeod walked in wearing only loose black pants. He spared Methos a glance, and took his katana from where it hung on the wall, unsheathing it, setting the scabbard aside and spinning the sword once. In the muted lighting from the New York streets, Methos could see MacLeod’s muscles flex, less defined than they had been in the past. He was still in good shape, but clearly hadn't been driving himself as hard. Part of Methos's mind marked this change as a point in his favor, even as he wondered at the lack of blood lust. He remembered climbing the stairs weeks ago, and the need that skated under his skin. There was nothing like that now. He watched as MacLeod warmed up, stretched sleep-slack muscles, bringing them back into shape. Methos waited, unmoving, not responding when MacLeod glanced his way.

After a few moments, MacLeod faced him. _Duncan faced him_. Methos tried to distance himself again, but the first name, the name whispered at night or cried out in pleasure—that was the name he could not shake. MacLeod he could kill. Had killed. Duncan? He wasn't so sure.

"Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod." 

Methos nodded, and raised the Ivanhoe, not trusting himself to speak. He understood why Castiel had said nothing. There was nothing he wanted to say.

"Won't you answer a challenge with your name?" Duncan asked.

Methos took a breath, waited a moment longer. Duncan moved his head a fraction, but it told Methos that the Challenge had to be answered. "You know who I am, and what I am," he said. "You know what I'm capable of, what I've done, and what I could do. I am the snake in the story, and you took me in anyway."

Duncan did not lower his guard, but he said, "You never bit me."

 _I killed you,_ he thought, trying to hold his face in scorn. Duncan was alive. Castiel had sent him back, and Methos should be grateful and not so scared. Deliberately, Methos smirked, but his was harder than he had expected. He made his voice as knowing and lascivious as he could. "Not in any way you didn't like." 

He saw Duncan's face darken, readied himself for the first attack, but Duncan stopped and lowered his sword. "We don't have to do this. You don't have to do this."

"There can be only one, isn't that what they tell us?" At that moment, despite the sneer in his voice, Methos would have been satisfied whether he lived or died. This time he would not kill in cold blood, and lie to himself about the reason why. If he died, Duncan would live, and would have every memory of Methos's long life. He would know how well he was loved. Methos took a breath, and repeated, "There can be only **one** ," bringing the Ivanhoe around for a side cut that he knew Duncan could easily block, but it would be the start. He pressed, and Duncan parried, moving to the side so that Methos could not back him to the wall. A part of Methos reveled in the clash of steel, the effort, the automatic analysis, looking for any opening. Duncan beat back his blade and whirled away, landing in the center of the room with his sword out straight. Methos beat at the blade once, but only as a test. He was glad of the chance to catch his breath.

"You said that to me once before," Duncan said. "You were trying to get me to take your head so that I would be strong enough to defeat Kalas."

"Is that what I told you?" Methos sneered. He did not want to remember that night. He had known the Highlander wouldn't do it.

"You offered me your neck. You were going to fight me and be sure to lose." Duncan dropped the point of his sword. "Is that what you're doing now?"

"Why would I do that?" Methos said, stepping forward with another side cut, forcing Duncan back and into guard. "Why do you think I waited so long after the Gathering? I was waiting for you to go soft," he lied. He was trying to make Duncan angry, to get him off balance. It was simply a tactic of battle, and he pressed forward again, feignting left and low, then bringing the heavy blade under and up on the right. It caught on Duncan's wide hakama trousers, and he pushed in to nick the skin above his knee before pulling back. In the half second as he returned to guard, he was open, and Duncan could have attacked, but he didn't. He hadn't attacked once, only defended.

"What's wrong, Highlander? If you plan to lose, why not just kneel down now?"

"Never," Duncan said, and even in the deep breaths of the effort of the fight, his voice sounded preternaturally calm. "You don't have to do this," he said again.

Methos attacked again, and this time he was watching for it—the steps of the kata meditation. Before living through Duncan's memories he would not have recognized it so quickly. "You're soft, MacLeod. I've been training for this. You knew what I was when you took me in, and now is the time I turn to bite." He narrowed his eyes and pushed harder. "Do you really want _me_ to be the last?"

But Duncan didn't respond to the goading. He sheathed his katana and hung it on the wall, then sat, posed for meditation, and closed his eyes.

"Bloody hell," whispered Methos, letting out some of the hope he had locked away. But he stayed in the role, and walked over, placing the Ivanhoe on Duncan's shoulder. "If I run you through, I will not disappear like Ahriman. I am not part of you." Duncan's eyes opened, and he looked up at Methos. 

"How can you know that?" His eyes widened. "Are you Ahriman?"

"Would I tell you if I was?" Methos asked, but something more made it into his voice—disgust at the thought, and realization that a streak of Ahriman was in him, taken from Castiel. His left hand came to his lip, unbidden, remembering the kiss. Ahriman was in both of them now.

He lowered the Ivanhoe and reached into his pocket. He found the penny Bobby had given him in exchange for the knife. He dropped it in Duncan's lap. "Penny for your thoughts."

Duncan picked up the coin and looked up as he fingered it. "I went through the Gathering, Methos. I know what it feels like to need to fight and to kill. I don't feel that now."

"Neither do I," Methos said. He let the silence stretch for a moment. "Did you win the Prize?" he asked, knowing the answer.

Duncan shook his head. "There was no prize."

"Yes, there is," he said, remembering the stupid, romantic thing Duncan had said to him the last time they were together. "I'm here." He put down his sword and did something he remembered about Tessa Noel, sitting in front of Duncan and turning to lie on his back with his head in Duncan's lap. He felt vulnerable and open.

"You're the Prize?" Duncan said affectionately, carding his hand through Methos's hair as if by reflex, exactly as he had done with Tessa. "Definitely not a snake. More donkey, I'd say."

"Yes, yes," Methos sighed. "Three-letter word, starts with A."

They stayed there for a long moment, the only movement Duncan's fingers in Methos's hair. Duncan finally said, "So you got a new sword?"

Methos swallowed. "No. Same one."

"What, did you break in and replace it with a replica hanging over my bed?"

"Same one. Take a look at that penny I gave you," Methos said, looking up at Duncan.

Duncan held it up to the light coming in through the window from the streetlamps, twisting it between his fingers. "This doesn't look right. Lincoln is supposed to be in profile." He looked back down at Methos. "Where did you get this?"

"That's a very long story, and I'm not sure you're going to believe it." Methos sat up and turned to face Duncan. "The snake is dead, and I've got the body down stairs to prove it."


End file.
